Rolls-Royce expands to build bespoke cars for super-rich

Luxury carmaker Rolls-Royce will expand its Goodwood factory and global headquarters to meet the growing demand for bespoke models.

It will invest more than £300 million so it can build more highly-customised versions of its cars for its super-rich clientele.

Although UK petrol and diesel car sales are due to be phased out by 2030, the boss of Rolls-Royce declined to say whether the firm would stop selling cars with combustion engines to clients abroad.

Rolls-Royce sold 5,712 cars in 2024, down from its record of 6,032 in 2023, but the total value of its sales was higher due to it selling more bespoke builds.

While those numbers may seem tiny compared with the millions of cars delivered each year by mainstream manufacturers, Rolls-Royce operates in a highly rarefied market.

The brand said it "does not disclose prices" but it is understood its cheapest model, the Ghost saloon, sells from about £250,000 upwards. Its Cullinan sports utility vehicle and electric Spectre models are thought to start at around £340,000.

As a luxury carmaker focused on export markets, Rolls-Royce is insulated from many of the challenges currently facing the wider European motor industry. However, it has been affected by a fall in demand in China, one of its most important markets.

Earlier this year, Brownridge said rising demand for personalised vehicles was helping to offset that decline.

The 120-year old British brand came under full control of German carmaker BMW in 2003 and officially opened its Goodwood site in West Sussex the same year. Rolls-Royce says this expansion secures its future in the UK.

For some customers, simply owning a Rolls-Royce isn't exclusive enough. In recent years, the company has increasingly focused on building highly-customised versions of its cars, which can then be sold at even higher prices. Its rivals also do this.

This has included cars with holographic paint, containing one-off artworks, or featuring intricate hand-stitched embroidery. One model, designed as a homage to the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger, includes features made out of solid 18-carat gold.

That is generating "more complicated commissions" and "driving the need" to expand Goodwood to have more space, Rolls-Royce chief executive Chris Brownridge told Radio 4's Today Programme.

But making individually tailored cars, while profitable, is a labour-intensive process that requires time and space.

At the same time, like other manufacturers, the company is preparing for a future in which conventional cars will be phased out and replaced by electric models.

In the UK, the Labour government has committed to phasing out sales of petrol and diesel cars by 2030, and is consulting car manufacturers on how that will work.

Brownridge declined to tell the BBC whether the firm would still be building cars with combustion engines for clients abroad in 2030, but said the firm had a "very clear roadmap" and that electric cars were the "right direction for Rolls-Royce".

A spokesman for Rolls-Royce said under current plans and legislation, Rolls-Royce would still have the capability to build combustion engine cars in 2030, if that is what clients want.

However, he said that five years "is a long time", and legislation may change, adding that by then it may not be feasible for the firm to build such cars.

Rolls-Royce said the extension of its factory would "create additional space" for building bespoke cars.

It added that the plan would "also ready the manufacturing facility for the marque's transition to an all-battery electric vehicle future".

The carmaker has already been granted planning permission for the expansion of the Goodwood plant, which was built in 2003 and initially housed 300 workers. There are currently more than 2,500 people working on the site, with a further 7,500 in the UK supply chain.

Brownridge said the Goodwood investment confirms the company has "a very secure business for the long term", so those jobs "are very much safe".

"Our business will potentially grow in terms of those more sophisticated commissions [and] in terms of the number of people that we need," he added.

In the US, president elect Donald Trump has threatened much higher tariffs on vehicle imports.

Brownridge said the US is "a very important market", but Rolls-Royce clients have more "price elasticity" than mass market customers, and the firm is not reliant on the US.

Rolls-Royce's factory expansion announcement on Wednesday comes weeks after another famous British brand generated controversy while setting out its own plans for the future.

Jaguar – a part of Jaguar Land Rover – is to be relaunched as an all-electric marque and moved sharply upmarket as part of a major restructuring at the company.

In December, it unveiled a dramatically styled concept car, which together with a new logo and a divisive online advert sparked a social media storm – and generated plenty of column inches.