Rolls-Royce celebrates 20 years in Goodwood

Luxury automotive marque, Rolls-Royce, is celebrating 20 years in Goodwood — its home since 2003 after the BMW Group acquired the brand in 1998.

Following the acquisition, the German automotive conglomerate needed to find a new place for Rolls-Royce. Just any new home wouldn’t do, however. It had to be fitting of the brand’s status and heritage.

Goodwood, only a little over 12 kilometers away from West Wittering, became the obvious choice. The company’s co-founder, Sir Henry Royce, lived and worked in Elmstead for the last 16 years of his long and illustrious life.

Further, Goodwood has become an iconic location thanks to the Goodwood Motor Circuit and the Festival of Speed.

Rolls-Royce then immediately secured an enthusiastic and influential champion for its project in the Estate's owner, the now Duke of Richmond, who identified a parcel of land that perfectly suited the company's needs.

“Everyone involved knew that this could be no ordinary manufacturing plant. Here, Rolls‑Royce would not just ‘build cars:’ it would design and hand-build the world's most desirable super-luxury goods, for highly exclusive, exceptionally discerning clients from across the globe,” Rolls-Royce said in a press release.

Soon after the parcel of land was identified, the carmaker turned to award-winning architects Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners — whose credentials included London's Waterloo International railway station and the Eden Project in Cornwall — to build its new home.

“They created a striking, contemporary, and highly sustainable building that blended effortlessly into the surrounding landscape. It also symbolized the innovative, technologically advanced, and meticulously crafted products that would be created inside,” described Rolls-Royce.

And 20 years later, the building still stands, representing the quality and ideology it stands for. Since it opened its doors, it remains the only place in the world where Rolls-Royce motor cars are designed and built — still by hand, of course.

The first model to roll out of the Rolls-Royce Goodwood factory was the Phantom. It was followed by the Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe (2007), Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupe (2008), Rolls-Royce Ghost (2010), Rolls-Royce Wraith (2013), Rolls-Royce Cullinan (2018), and the Rolls-Royce Spectre (2022): the marque’s genre-defining ultra-luxury electric super coupe.

Over the last two decades, and under the supervision of the BMW Group, Rolls-Royce became a leading house of luxury automobiles. The company has continuously developed and expanded its bespoke capabilities, giving clients near-infinite ways to personalize their vehicles.

The ultimate expression of this is coachbuild, where a small but significant group of individuals can commission not just their motor car’s external color and interior features, but its physical form.

“Goodwood is both the physical and spiritual Home of Rolls-Royce; the only place in the world where we design and handcraft our unique luxury products, with a unique, personal connection to our long history. Far more than just an advanced manufacturing facility and corporate headquarters, it gives visitors an immediate introduction to our brand: beautiful, elegant, and impressive, yet also creative, vibrant and ever-changing. In its design and construction, it embodies our central values of precision, attention to detail, and pride for this great British institution. It is its own private universe, yet wholly connected to the wider world. We, the Rolls‑Royce family, are privileged to call it home,” commented Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Chief Executive Officer Torsten Müller-Ötvös.

Photos from Rolls-Royce

Also read: 

Rolls-Royce Phantom ‘The Six Elements’ raise over $1-M for charity

Rolls-Royce attains historic sales record in 2022

Rolls-Royce reveals history behind name of upcoming Spectre