Background
Immediately after the second World War, Rolls-Royce was, just like many other car constructors, in a very difficult spot from a financial perspective. The war years had led to rapidly declining sales and the brand was looking for ways to survive.
The answer was the Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn, with its factory-built body which it shared, together with the chassis, with the Bentley Mark VI until 1952 and from there on the Bentley R-Type until the end of production in 1955.
Though some people would view these as dark times for the make, we can today safely assume that Rolls-Royce owes its survival to the model.
In 1946 Rolls-Royce moved its production from Derby to Crewe where they began building complete cars in-house. As such, the first new Bentley was the Mark VI, which was then followed by its sister car in 1949, sold under the Rolls-Royce brand name.
Both cars were basically identical, but the Silver Dawn was built only for export until 1953.
Consequently, most Silver Dawns were left-hand drive with the Standard Pressed Steel four-door salon bodywork. Only about 760 Silver Dawns were built and about 60 of those cars were bodied by different smaller coachbuilders. Prior to late 1952, left-hand drive vehicles were always delivered with a manual transmission and a column gear change, whereas right-hand drive examples featured a floor change.
A first notable upgrade came in 1951 when the six-cylinder in-line engine size was increased to 4,556cc and received a full flow oil filter. Later cars also received high compression heads. All the engine iterations had overhead inlet and side exhaust valves.
Though the company was trying to cut costs, the cars sold for £4,700 when new, which was 12 times the price of a new English Ford.
The rarity of the Rolls-Royce made it a more desirable and expensive car to buy compared to its Bentley sister car.
Generally, the cars were said to be reliable and comfortable drivers, good for long trips and requiring only basic and inexpensive maintenance.
