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Rolls-Royce hails rebound in demand for luxury cars

Marque sees sales start to recover post Covid-19 as it launches a new version of its successful Ghost.
Posted on 18 September, 2020
Rolls-Royce hails rebound in demand for luxury cars

The chief executive of Rolls-Royce says global demand for luxury vehicles is bouncing back despite the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic this year.

Torsten Muller-Otvos explains that the marque’s sales for the first half of 2020 were down 30 per cent but he claims the markets in Asia, Europe and the US are now “more or less back to normal”.

He was speaking at the launch of the new Rolls-Royce Ghost, pictured, which is expected to retail at around £250,000 (NZ$500,000).

At the height of the coronavirus outbreak, Rolls-Royce stopped production at its British factories for a couple of weeks and dealerships worldwide were also forced to close their doors.

This led to a slump in sales for the luxury brand after a bumper year in 2019, which Muller-Otvos describes as “the best-ever year in the 116-year history of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars”.

Despite the setback of Covid-19, Muller-Otvos is optimistic about the future and says the company is seeing an “upward trend” in demand. 

“We see a very fruitful business now coming back from Asia, also Europe is coming back on track, the Americas just delivered an excellent July result and August result,” he adds.

“Business is coming back to what I would call far more normal. I am quite optimistic looking into 2021, particularly on the back of a very strong order bank we have already on our books.”

Second generation

The company hopes the new Rolls-Royce Ghost, the marque’s most successful model that has been given a complete redesign, will help increase demand.

First launched in 2009, the second generation of the model bumps up the car’s length by 89mm to 5,635mm, while its width has grown 30mm to 1,978mm.

The latest version is powered by a 563bhp, 6.75L twin-turbo V12 unit that is paired with an eight-speed automatic gearbox and four-wheel drive.

The Ghost also comes with all-wheel steering, a new suspension set up and all doors are fully automatic.