“In 2024, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars reaffirmed its position as an authentic luxury house by crafting the most complex, personal, and valuable motor cars in its history. This momentum means it is necessary for us to invest more than £300 million in extending the Home of Rolls-Royce. This represents our most substantial financial commitment to Goodwood since its opening in 2003 and a significant vote of confidence in the Rolls-Royce marque, securing our future here in the UK. 2024’s record Bespoke results demonstrate our clients are increasingly drawn to the marque to create ever more ambitious and valuable motor cars, thereby enjoying the exceptional and highly personalised experience that Rolls-Royce ownership unlocks. This underscores our commitment to creating value for our clients and those with a stake in our business.”
Chris Brownridge, Chief Executive, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has announced an investment exceeding £300 million to extend its manufacturing facility at Goodwood. This is the next step in the company’s commitment to creating value for clients by handcrafting the most complex, personal, and valuable luxury goods while providing an unparalleled client experience. The marque’s 2024 performance – a record year for Bespoke and the third-best sales result in the company’s history – confirms the success of this approach.
The extension will create additional space for the increasingly complex and high-value Bespoke and Coachbuild projects sought by clients who define luxury as something deeply personal to them. It will also ready the manufacturing facility for the marque’s transition to an all-battery electric vehicle (BEV) future.
This £300+ million investment is the single largest injection of capital since the plant opened on 1 January 2003. Then, it employed around 300 people and produced just one motor car a day. Although the Goodwood manufacturing plant has undergone significant internal changes over the past 20 years, the building itself has remained largely unchanged, while staff numbers have since increased more than eightfold, and the marque now produces up to 28 motor cars a day.
More than 2,500 individuals are now employed at the Home of Rolls-Royce at Goodwood – including many highly skilled manufacturing and craft specialists – as well as around 7,500 people in the company’s wider UK supply chain. In 2023, an independent study by the London School of Economics (LSE) demonstrated that Rolls-Royce Motor Cars contributes around half a billion pounds to the UK economy every year, as a leading representative of ‘UK PLC’.
Planning permission to extend the Home of Rolls-Royce was granted in 2024. Fittingly, this milestone was achieved during the year in which Rolls-Royce celebrated the 120th anniversary of the first meeting between its co-founders, The Hon. Charles Stewart Rolls and Henry (later Sir Henry) Royce, on 4 May 1904. Site preparation and landscaping work is now underway.
A RECORD YEAR FOR BESPOKE
During 2024, the Rolls-Royce Bespoke Collective of specialist designers, engineers, and craftspeople undertook some of their most creatively daring and technically challenging commissions to date. These projects incorporated innovative materials, features, and craft techniques never seen before on a Rolls-Royce motor car, resulting in unique, emotionally resonant masterpieces which truly reflect each commissioning client’s interests and personality.
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars’ Bespoke offering reached record levels in 2024. Bespoke content value increased 10% on average per motor car year-on-year, reaching the highest level in the company’s history.
This record achievement is a testament to Rolls-Royce’s long-term strategic focus on Bespoke, centred on creating value for clients through highly individualised products and experiences, and providing opportunities for meaningful personal expression. These commissions drew inspiration from diverse themes, ranging from spectacular natural phenomena and the marque’s heritage to cherished personal milestones and classic films. Artisans crafted exquisite details including solid 18-carat gold sculptures, intricate embroideries comprising more than 869,500 stitches, delicate marquetry composed of more than 500 individually shaped pieces of wood, captivating mother-of-pearl artworks, and holographic paint finishes, among other notable expressions of contemporary craft.
Rolls-Royce Phantom Extended received the most comprehensive Bespoke commissions throughout the year, as clients explored this generous and detailed canvas for personal expression. In its first full year of deliveries, clients immediately saw the Bespoke potential of Spectre, with this model containing the second highest level of Bespoke content per motor car in the marque’s 2024 portfolio.
The Middle East was the largest Bespoke region by average value per motor car, closely followed by North America and Europe.
Rolls-Royce Coachbuild, the pinnacle of Bespoke expression, unveiled Arcadia Droptail in 2024. It is one of four coachbuilt Droptail masterpieces, which followed the marque’s previous Coachbuild commissions ‘Sweptail’ and Boat Tail.
