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Curious: Old Rolls-Royces?
Hey all -- I want to preface this by saying that I have no intention of seeking out or buying an old Rolls-Royce, I'm just posting this out of curiosity and my own edification. I'm relatively clueless when it comes to this particular corner of the automotive world.
I've noticed that, here and there, you often see nice "old" (late 70s/early 80s) era Rolls-Royces for sale relatively cheaply (under 20 grand), compared to what they cost new. We all know how freaking expensive they are, and unique, and hand-build, and how expensive the used parts probably are... Part of me thinks, "hey, that could be a cool old car for Sunday drives with the family!" So here's the question: why are old ones so cheap? Are they just in the "desirability trough" right now? New ones are ridiculously expensive, and REALLY old ones are ridiculously expensive, but those 70s/80s ones seem pretty affordable. And here's the inevitable follow-up question: are they so cheap because maintaining one would be a nightmare? They are more-or-less known for their build quality, right? Would it be prohibitively expensive to keep and maintain one due to the price of parts and the unique mechanical expertise needed? Again, I'm just curious. |
I’ve had the same thoughts, except related to old Bentleys as well. I suspect they are crazy expensive to maintain but I’ll be curious if anyone here has first hand knowledge.
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I'm wondering if part of it is simply (to paraphrase Robert Duvall in "Gone in 60 Seconds"), "who the hell would want to buy a 1988 Rolls-Royce?!"
In other words: what makes them attractive to many buyers is that buying a new one screams "I'm rich as hell," while buying a used one screams "I'm not rich, but I like pretending I am." It's different than buying a used Porsche or Ferrari, because with the used status sports cars, a main attraction is the driving dynamics. Just a theory. |
They look easy to work on and I think maintaining them is no more difficult than the same generation BMW \ Mercedes many of us have cut our teeth on.
Some specific parts might be spendy, but there is great forum and online camaraderie to ease ownership.... My dear Dad always wanted one for years and years, but was too cheap to buy one (even at less than $20k), so now he drives a Hyundai Elantra You live once do it! |
I mean, come on -- this is a cool car.
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1978-rolls-royce-silver-wraith-4/ |
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I dunno. I once heard that people don't buy a product, they buy a perception of a product. Are we sure this interest isn't a great example of that idea? Beyond the name and how ridiculously far they have depreciated, what makes them great cars?
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Always wondered about them too. No knowledge of my own, just passing on. This looks to offer a wealth of info, but may need to join?
Technical Assistance - Rolls-Royce and Bentley Forums |
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I can't say anything about actual quality, of course. I simply don't know. But they are interesting, that's for sure. |
My quick research many years ago was that the gas mileage was miserable, like 6 miles per gallon or so!
I also don’t think driving one would be that much fun- smooth and powerful, but just a cruiser. I’m real cheap when it comes to consumables, so anything less than about twenty mpg would just about kill me. |
Back in the UK I worked on a few of these and About the only thing inexpensive on a Silver Shadow or Wraith is the transmissions as they are GM sourced. The brakes are a Citroen design but due to the various RR modifications a rebuild is easily $5k. The motors are pretty unstressed as they are a 6.7 liter but you are still looking at some serious coin if it has had issues. The interiors are horrendously expensive to restore (Wilter carpets and Connolly hides) and do not like hot climates. Yes you can buy a late 20th Century RR for what looks like a low price of entry but upkeep will beggar you.
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There's a nice article in Car & Driver about why there are really cheap Bentleys in used parking lots. It's along the same lines as CJFusco's post above.
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Not the sort of car I like, ponderous. Perhaps if I drove people around more than I do. If I am driving the folks, I like to take their Lincoln.
I tend towards soft tops with little to no backseat |
To answer the OP, they are cheap because they are so expensive to maintain.
They are on Ferrari level not BMW in parts cost. If they had some Italian looks and were a sports car there might be a crowd who could justify the expense, but there is not that cache with them. |
I think driving dynamics is a great reason to own one. Bank vault quiet, smooth as silk, oozes quality, etc. Not everyone wants a hobby car to carve mountains with.
My guess is the same phenomenon we see with late 80’s Mercedes. Dirt cheap to buy but cost of many parts and service are prohibitive. Heater control module on a $3000 MB could run you 2/3 of the cars value sending you underwater very quickly. Just buy one that the seller promises won’t break. All good. |
I know of 3 locally. All 3 are very different cars.
One is on blocks in a trailer park of all places. Been there for years. It's brown, had a tarp on it at one time but is parked in front of an 80's Buick. Owned by some old lady. Second I see driven around town quite often. It's blue, driven by an older gentleman, is in perfect shape, not a scratch on it. He keeps it shiny. Sounds amazing, looks like it rides amazing and he just drives it. The third is (was) owned by a limo company. They rent(ed) it out for weddings. Talked to the owner of the limo company about it and he said he will never get another one. He said every time he took it out something on it broke. And the rental price never covered the cost of the repair. It has (or had, it's been about 10 years since I've seen it around) 70K miles on it and he told me he had spent over $10K repairing little things on the car. Making windows work, turn signals, wiring, brakes, etc. And that getting new parts was a nightmare, never mind used parts. When he gave me a ride in the thing it wasn't what I was expecting. At all. It did NOT ride like I thought a Rolls would. More like a station wagon with a pallet of bricks in the back. It just felt heavy. I presume he had gotten one of the cheap ones. With that said, I assume it's like any other car. You get what you pay for. You can either buy a $30K car or a $10K car and put $20K into it. |
I think an older 450+ HP Bentley Arnage would be a pretty fun daily driver.:D
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One of the guys who works with us has a few, I'll ask him. He also just bought a newer Boxster S so maybe I can get him to join the forums
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Not sure if anyone here follows the Hoovie's Garage webseries -- he buys old, used-to-be-desirable cars (he has a nice NSX, Cayenne Turbo, and Mercedes AMG... as well as quasi-broken Ferrari F355, BMW 750 and 850, and a 996 Carrera whose engine he blew up)... but his Bentley Continental is the only project he's officially given up on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9_5uIeQuTA |
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Late 90s I owned a 1974 Fixed Head Corniche for about 4 years. I drove it a lot but not everyday.
The only reason I sold it (and some other toys) was because of my divorce/property settlement. Great car - Great build quality! They even smell right. Real old world leather and wood. The later cars are OK to but I prefer the older 70s, early 80s cars but they're all on carburettors. Fuel injection didn't become the norm until the 90s & even then they didn't do much better because they also increased in weight. But... If you can't afford a new Rolls-Royce you can't afford a used one either. * How does 11 to 12 MPG sound? * Everything is expensive but you can DIY them. * Second hand parts are plentiful but again expensive. Stay away from the classic fans. In general they are snobs and they dislike the new cars or anything post BMW ownership. They talk of class but the fact is most of them are elitists idiots with no real money. |
Go test drive it. That should cure your urge.
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One summer a friend and I pulled up to a gas pump to fill a boat so we could go water skiing. The vehicle ahead of us was an OLD American V-twin. When we got out I noticed it was an old, largely stripped-down Indian Chief! I tried chatting with the greasy biker who was not terribly social. The exchange took about 30 seconds. The last words went like this:
Me: I'll best it's hard to find parts for it. He: Don't need 'em. |
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From a financial POV, they just never make sense but I suppose buying a nice used one for pennies is about as close as you’ll get. I’ve always thought that was part of the weird appeal to them, that they signify the owner truly has $$ to burn. It was correctly pointed out that only new ones have real status, especially the $500k convertible that will depreciate $10k a month or more. That’s truly FU money. :) I have a close friend who bought a new Bentley Arnage in 2005 for ~$250k and then promptly decided that it “wasn’t her” and parked it in the garage for years w 5k miles on it. It’s actually quite beautiful, it was their traveling auto show car that year. As anyone who has ever been to the auto show knows, the Bentley and RR display is roped-off w security so no kids climbing all over the cars like most other makes. Long story short, I maintain the car and drive it once in a while. Or should I say, I’m supposed to drive it once in a while but I never do. I’m the only one who has driven it in years and it now has 6k miles or something. I’ve found a good independent shop for it and also have done some work on it myself successfully. It’s not too complicated for the most part and repairing these cars is where the real money is. It’s also a strange mix of extremely good build quality in places and just slap-shod crap in others. It’s very low-tech compared to other luxury cars the same age. The driving experience is interesting, it’s a heavy bank vault but it really flies w the 6.7 twin turbo. HUGE lungs and just pulls like a freight train @ 100mph. The old one in the ad above would not do that, though. At one point a couple years ago, I put the Arnage up for sale but only got an offer for around $80k, she decided to keep it but still hasn’t driven it. Kind of a shame. :cool: |
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Here is the one I drive once in a while:
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https://images.craigslist.org/00P0P_...hy_600x450.jpg Here's a $36k Ford Bronco: https://images.craigslist.org/00404_...CM_600x450.jpg Here's a $10k Rolls-Royce: https://images.craigslist.org/00p0p_...l4_600x450.jpg Here's a $23k Rolls-Royce: http://imagescdn.dealercarsearch.com...6499295416.jpg No one is surprised when it cost $25k to move Bronco 1 to Bronco 2's level; people shriek at spending $13k to move from RR 1 to RR 2's level. Rolls-Royce 2, btw, used to belong to me when I first joined this forum (it's currently for sale on a lot in Scottsdale - I've kept up with it over the years). I had that and a 1983 911SC. I sold it to buy my 1983 944 and 1983 928S. http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1524418369.jpg The main reason the 1966-2000 cars are so cheap is there are so many; the Silver Shadow (1966-1980) sold over 30,000 units, and was the company's biggest seller. The second reason is that many fell into the hands of dreamers that didn't take care of them, and you see a lot of them left to rot, similar to 944s and 928s. Are they difficult and expensive to maintain? Not really, when compared to their contemporaries from Mercedes, BMW, Land Rover or Jaguar. The V8 was under-stressed in non-turbo form (same engine in the Bentley Turbos) and dead reliable. The trans is GM, as are some ancillary systems like air conditioning. The SU carbs are the same as any British car, and when they switched to Bosch fuel injection they used the same system as Porsche. The Citroen-based brakes are seen as troublesome because they're unfamiliar over here. I replaced every hose in the system myself for about $300 over a weekend using a video from the RROC and parts were readily available from Albers. Like most classics, buying a nice one is cheaper in the long run compared to trying to fix up a cheap one. The Connolly leather and Wilton carpets are pricey, so avoid a car that needs those replaced, or need paint. Getting the wood refinished isn't that bad, and if you're willing to learn about the braking system that doesn't have to be crazy expensive. You're likely better off doing them yourself, as odds are the mechanic you pay thousands to won't know much more than you unless you tracked down a RR specialist thru the RROC. |
Hey Denis, what do you think of the overall Bentley driving experience? From the perspective of a big sedan, not a Porsche?
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Yorkie, Choc and Sc ruf are the only ones who have a clue that posted so far...the rest of you are clueless zippos...
I OWNED ONE FOR 5 Years...a 76 LWB Shadow...Wraith whats that????. The diff was the LWB had a 4 inch longer wheel base (and a vinyl top) than a SWB. RR went BK around 91 where VW and BMW picked them up. The older cars were truly the last real ones. Many of the parts suppliers who made the stuff to last went out of business in 1991. So the later cars were in name only. The engines were sleeved Aluminum block with mild steel valve springs which were very under stressed and as such had long life spans...if taken care of and NOT OVER HEATED...to overhaul that engine in the mid 90's was about 17K. More than the car was worth. Quiet...After the BK they put BMW V12's in them... I GOTS NEWS FOR YOUSE...EVEN PEOPLE WITH FU MONEY WHO BUY THEM NEW DO NOT MAINTAIN THEM... They figure hey I am going to buy a new one in 2 or 3 years so screw it. Maintenance records are ALL IMPORTANT. They lose about 50% of their value the first year...why.. if you can afford to buy a new one for 250K why would you buy a used one for 200K? They are maintenance heavy, lots of simple systems, that if not corrected properly can cause BIG AND COSTLY PROBLEMS. Even mechanics who claim to be RR Specialists are fkwads who cut corners and to fix their shoddy work COSTS REAL MONEY. I had a guy who did it right, cause he loved them...but he made his bread and butter fixing Toyotas though.. Like a used Benz...you are either going to be making the payment to the bank or the mechanic..lots of ner do wells buy them and do not maintain them, deferring maintenance because they can not afford them. Whew...that car was always costing me a few hundred here and there on a regular basis. I got tired of it..and couldn't write the checks anymore. That car loved to go 80 mph down the freeway...it was like sitting in your Library in a big leather easy chair surrounded by the smell of leather, wood and wool carpeting...I could drive ALL DAY in heavy traffic with the music and AC, get out of the car feeling like I just had a nap...It was a beautiful smooth quiet ride. The Shadows weigh a ton with 500lb of Lead body filler...the weigh dampens the ride... They made a large number of Shadows so parts are relativity easy to find (The AC and auto Trans are reworked GM units). Many of the parts are REBULDABLE (like water pumps) If you have a Carmargue good luck, they made so few of them parts are tough to get. The Shadow was a SEMI Hand built car..the fixed and drop head Cornice was a truly hand built car...and that is why they are worth a premium. On the Shadows you had better use Castrol RR 365 Brake Fluid...and not the regular Castrol...if you contaminate the system with the regular stuff the parts to fix it was 4k...RR brake systems build heat which breaks down the regular Castrol and causes all the rubber seals in the system to turn into bubble gum and LEAK. That is why maintenance records are important. No matter a old or new car people are impressed by a RR or the understated Bentley..which until the BK was just a difference of the badge and grill. Old money preferred the Bentley because it was understated. |
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The interior is made primarily of wood, metal, leather, etc. There is a difference in weight, feel, temperature, etc... I would only recommend one with a "near new" interior condition. Almost any knucklehead can do mechanical work, the artesian skills for leather and metalworking are another matter. Like any specialty used car with an expensive price when new, it really needs to be "throw away money" that you spend on one. SmileWavy At this point, if something happened to my Jaguar XK in a big way, I'd just send it off and replace it. |
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I’ve always been intrigued with the Corniche Coupe (think McQueen in The Thomas Crowne Affair). Love the lines. But as stated above, I’d prefer the ‘understated’ elegance of newer Bentley(s). They have the Brooklands Coupe or in a sedan form the Arnage. For some SERIOUS depreciation, you can get a super low mileage Azure for under a 100. bentleygoldcoast.com usually has some nice Arnage’s in inventory. I seriously considered one but couldn’t figure out a recommended way to tow an enclosed trailer with it, so I bought a GL instead.
Denis, that really looks like the vault at the Peterson where the Bentley is ‘garaged’? |
Thomas Crown Affair was a Mulliner Park Ward coupe, that is in another stratosphere from a Corniche. :)
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I've worked on a few 90's examples. A few things surprised me. The weight..........like over 3 tons. The suspension reminded me more like a truck in scale and beefyness. The tires were 6 ply - I assume because of load carrying. It had GM trans and A/C systems.
Also the lift would barely pick it up off of the ground. Technology- wise, it seemed at least 20 years behind other luxury cars of the same era. But when you sat in it, drove it...........definitely felt solid, heavy ( in a good way) the interiors were better than anything I had ever sat in. |
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