Rolls Royce EX200 (RR4 / Ghost) breaks cover early

The Rolls Royce EX200 Concept unveiled ahead of its Geneva debut

Well, this was supposed to be embargoed until tomorrow, but if the Daily Telegraph are prepared to jump the gun, I suppose we may as well jump on their coach and run it as well!

After more spy shots of the Rolls Royce RR4 than I care to remember, and teaser images and trickles of details, we finally have some concrete information, and some images, to put meat on the bones of the new Baby Rolls Royce.

But apparently we shouldn’t call it the ‘Baby’ RR, as Rolls Royce insists that the new car, which will be almost exactly the same as this concept, will be built to the same exacting standards as the flagship Phantom. A fair point, but as it’s a good 18 inches shorter than its big brother, it’s not exactly an unreasonable moniker.

Based on the latest BMW 7 Series platform (but with 80% unique content) the new Rolls Royce (probably the Ghost or Silver Ghost) will come to the market a bit cheaper than we all thought – somewhere around the £170k mark – putting it head to head with the somewhat ancient, though glorious, Bentley Arnage.

The new car features the carry-over suicide doors from the Phantom, and looks to have a similar amount of room inside, despite its slightly more modest dimensions. Power is initially expected to come from a new V12, based on BMW’s current 4.0 V8 twin turbo, but with additional cylinders taking it to 6.0 litres, and normally aspirated. But expect to see some form of hybrid coming out of the woodwork at some point.

There are lots of electronic gizmos on the RR, including ESP and adjustable damping, and featuring the RR version of BMW’s iDrive. The toys will be a little more visible than in the Phantom, but traditional wood and leather still dominate.

As with the Phantom, expect the RR4 to spawn both coupe and drophead versions in time. Rolls Royce has already made it clear that they expect some versions of the RR4 to cost more than the standard version of the Phantom, so it will be interesting to see what they have in mind.

Although this Ex200 concept will be in the flesh at Geneva ’09 next month, the production car, complete with name, won’t show up until Frankfurt in September.

(Source: Daily Telegraph)