Rolls-Royce: The audacity of scope

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Rolls-Royce will debut a smaller, leaner, less formal car at the Geneva Auto Show on March 3: The 200EX concept is a near-production version of the saloon that will begin production in 2010.

So, is this a smaller Rolls for leaner times? Is the car’s gross tonnage some kind of index of global economy?

Not really. The fact is, sales of the Phantom, extended-wheelbase Phantom, Coupe and Drophead Coupe have been brisk, despite the $400,000 to $560,000-plus price tag. The 200EX -- the development of which predates the current financial China Syndrome -- is about extending the brand to compete in the suburban grocery-getter segment. That’s a price point in the $230,000 to $300,000-plus range, somewhere just above the coming Aston Martin Rapide and Porsche Panamera.

It’s also about amortizing parent BMW’s engineering costs in the new 7-series. The 7-series and 200EX will be mechanical first cousins.

But a smaller Rolls? How will that work?

This is a delicate matter. The visual language of Rolls-Royce cars is one of grandeur and monumentality, a kind of enduring classicism and formality somehow outside the stream of time: the long, proud prow, the Parthenon grille, the high shoulders and sweeping contours, the sheer dizzying size of the thing. A Hooper-bodied Phantom from the 1950s looks like it should have its own airport.

Call it the Audacity of Scope.

The marque made a succession of more modestly sized two-doors from the early 1970s to early 2000s called Corniche -- ‘modest’ being relative, since the cars were over 5 meters long. Hard-core enthusiasts have argued that the smaller Rolls precipitated the decline of RR that ultimately ended with the ignominious acquisition by the Germans. (Actually, the cars sold very well, but you can’t reason with enthusiasts.) The argument ran that the smaller cars lacked the aristocratic hauteur of the big cars.

Perhaps when it comes to Rolls, size -- avoirdupois, scale, mass, dimension -- matters.

The point was underscored in 2003 when BMW rolled out the frighteningly massive Phantom. Designed by Marek Djordjevic as the first car under German ownership, the car seemed to overcompensate with a spectacular, dreadnought-class grandiosity.

Now Rolls-Royce seems to be getting more comfortable in its own skin: The grilles are smaller (as a percentage of frontal area) and more streamlined and contemporary. The single-bow through line is more windswept, converging at a tapering tail. The glass-to-body ratio is more typical of a modern saloon (in the older cars, the windows are narrow and high above the cliffs of sheet metal).

Judging by the 200EX -- a gracious 5.4 meters long -- Rolls isn’t exactly abandoning its road-going arrogance. Note the sweet coach doors (the rear doors have the hinges at the rear, like the larger Phantom).

The question remains: Is a more reasonable, rational car still a Rolls?

-- Dan Neil