Rolls-Royce owners are not, in the main, stupid. The vast majority of them have earned the right to travel in, and bark orders at the world from, the back seat of the world’s most luxurious cars by being smarter than the next man.
And when they were asked how’d they react to a diesel engine being developed for future models, they apparently screamed, “Well if it’s all the same to you chaps, no thanks” at the R-R brass.
But what on earth was the brass at Rolls-Royce even thinking about when considering diesel power as an option for future models? A Rolls-Royce is the pinnacle of escorting, surely, and the ultimate no-compromise motorcar. So why would a diesel engine beneath the bonnet be anything other than a poor idea?
Or is it the owners of Rolls-Royces (and me) who are wrong? Have we reached a stage in our evolution during which even the best of the best now requires compromise in order to gel with the rest of the world? Should the gap between the haves and the have nots be compulsorily narrowed in order to keep the 'whatever, don’t cares' happy?
I think not. I think that Rolls-Royces should continue to be magnificently out of kilter with the rest of us. And I think that they should be powered by whatever their owners want them to be powered by, be that gas-quaffing twin-turbo V12s, W16s, near-silent V8s or whatever happens to be in vogue and available at the time. And knickers to what the rest of us think.
Otherwise it simply wouldn’t do, and it certainly wouldn’t be a Rolls-Royce. Would you not agree, old boy?
