Published on May 3rd, 2023 | by Sounder Rajen

Best-Selling Rolls-Royce Convertible In History, The Dawn, Ends Production

Could this signal Rolls-Royce abandoning sedans in favour of SUVs too?

Okay, so a few years ago, Ford announced it would be axing almost its entire lineup of sedans in its home market of the United States to shift its focus to the more profitable SUV, luckily, the brand still sells sedans in other markets but now, British ultra-luxury marque, Rolls-Royce, has announced something that may signal a similar fate.

Rolls-Royce has announced that the Dawn convertible will soon be no more because the car is officially going out of production. The brand reports that the Dawn is the best-selling open-top in its history, so this is quite sad but if this leads to the brand fully abandoning sedans next, it is even worse.

Moreover, when it created the Dawn, Rolls-Royce did so to appeal to a younger audience and it worked, attracting a boat load of new and younger buyers to the brand. The brand also used the Wraith coupe as a starting point for this car but didn’t want to simply chop the roof off and thus the Dan was born.

What made the Rolls-Royce Dawn even more appealing was the fact that the body of the car removed all unnecessary lines the Wraith had as well as about 80 percent of the body panels being completely unique from the Wraith.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end and as Rolls-Royce puts it in the announcement of the Dawn’s production ending, “Supple, flowing coachwork wraps around its occupants akin to raising a collar on an overcoat, affording those inside a cosseting, private and chic cabin experience.”

On top of that, Rolls-Royce also considered giving the Dawn a folding hardtop but eventually settled on a fabric roof using a mix of materials that includes cashmere. Rolls claimed that it came up with the world’s quietest convertible. Sadly, with the whole world preferring SUVs like the Cullinan, companies need to follow the money.

Rolls-Royce is synonymous with comfort and according to the company, an American journalist allegedly drove a Dawn during an earthquake measuring 3.6 on the Richter scale and didn’t the ground shaking until reading about it later.

The Rolls-Royce Dawn premiered at the 2015 Frankfurt Motor Show and at launch featured a twin-turbo 6.6-liter V12 making 563hp and 780Nm of torque. This launched the convertible to 100km/h in just 4.9 seconds and on to a top speed of 250km/h.

The roof folded in roughly 20 seconds while traveling at speeds up to 50km/h. Rolls-Royce also later added the Black Badge version which bumped the V12’s output to 593hp and 840Nm of torque. Does this mean Rolls-Royce is going to also soon axe it’s sedan and coupe lineup in favour of SUVs? That is unclear for now but I hope not.