The superb Rolls-Royce Corniche has been brought back to life by a small British firm called Halcyon, and before you roll your eyes at yet another restomod, this one is at least doing something rather interesting with the idea.
Because the Corniche, particularly the fixed-head coupe, was always a slightly curious thing. Introduced in 1971 by Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, it arrived at a time when the world was worrying about oil shortages and tightening belts, yet here was this enormous, softly spoken coupe wafting about as if none of that applied. Which, to be fair, it probably didn’t for its owners.
The coupe version didn’t last all that long. It disappeared in 1981, quietly, without much fuss, leaving the convertible to carry on for another decade or so. That makes the hardtop version feel a bit more niche today. Slightly under the radar. The sort of Rolls you’d choose if you didn’t feel the need to constantly remind people you were in one.
Halcyon has taken that car and folded it into something called the Great Eight series. Sixty cars in total, of which only twenty will be Corniche coupes. The rest are a mixture of dropheads and a few other Crewe-era machines, all given the same careful once-over. Or perhaps twice-over, given that each build takes around 5,000 hours, which is a rather long time to spend with any one car. You’d hope they get on with it.
The engine remains the old 6.75-liter V8, which is reassuring. It would be a bit like putting a microwave in a Georgian townhouse otherwise. Halcyon says it has been reworked, improved, made more capable. They haven’t said how much more capable, which I rather like. Numbers can sometimes get in the way of the point, and the point here isn’t speed, it’s the way the thing goes about its business.
Still, they’ve made some sensible changes underneath. The original Corniche was never what you’d call agile. It preferred a gentle approach to corners and an even gentler approach to stopping. This one gets adaptive suspension, better brakes, and electronically controlled dampers, which sounds complicated but probably just means it behaves itself when asked.
There are also drive modes—Drive, Spirited, Touring—which feels faintly modern for something like this. I suspect most owners will leave it in Drive and forget the others exist, which is exactly what I would do. A Rolls-Royce doesn’t really need to be “Spirited.” It needs to be calm, unbothered, and faintly aloof.
Visually, they’ve resisted the urge to overdo it. The car is finished in something called Arboretum Green, which sounds like a place you might visit on a Sunday afternoon, and inside there’s tan leather and open-pore wood. Proper materials. The sort of things that improve with age rather than deteriorate, assuming you don’t spill anything unfortunate on them.
Then there’s a detail I rather like. Across the dashboard runs what Halcyon calls the Gallery, a long engraved panel inspired by the Surrey Hills. It’s decorative, slightly indulgent, and entirely unnecessary, which is precisely why it works. Old Rolls-Royces were full of that sort of thinking.
Of course, modern life has crept in. There’s Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, climate control, electric seats, and a reversing camera, which is probably useful given the size of the thing. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about plugging a smartphone into a car like this, but I suppose if you’re going to use it regularly, it helps.
Each car starts at £425,000, which is a considerable sum, though not wildly out of step with what these things cost when new, adjusted for inflation and a general sense of extravagance. Buyers can specify almost everything, and the build takes about a year. Plenty of time to change your mind about the wood.
What Halcyon has done, really, is take a car that belonged to a very particular moment and made it usable now, without scrubbing away what made it appealing in the first place. That’s harder than it sounds.
