Background
Rolls-Royce's adoption of unitary construction for its new Silver Shadow and T-Series Bentley necessitated the reorganisation of in-house coachbuilder H J Mulliner, Park Ward to enable it to produce new designs on the Shadow floor pan.
These exclusive cars were hand-built in the best traditions of British coachbuilding with materials such as Wilton carpeting, Connolly hide and burr walnut veneers.
Such uncompromising quality resulted in a price some 50% higher than that of the standard Silver Shadow, which was hardly a cheap car.
Nevertheless, demand was strong right from the start, and the vehicles were given their own model name - 'Corniche' - in March 1971.
In Corniche form Rolls-Royce's well-tried 6.7-litre V8 produced around 10% more power than standard and proved capable of propelling the car to a top speed of nearly 200 kph with sports car-beating acceleration to match.
Despite its sky-high asking price, the model proved a major success for Rolls-Royce and arguably played a major part in saving the business.
It remained in production well into the 1990s, the last (Convertible) examples being delivered in 1995.
