The Corniche was a development of the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, with the two door variants of that model marketed as the 'Silver Shadow Mulliner Park Ward two door fixed head coupé & drop head coupé' from 1966 until when the Corniche name was applied. The exterior design was by John Polwhele Blatchley. The model was assembled and finished in London at Mulliner Park Ward as continuation of the 1965 Silver Shadow coupe and 1966 drophead, with the Corniche name applied in March 1966. The Corniche was also sold as a Bentley, though that model became known as the Continental in 1984.

Rolls Royce began marketing the Corniche in 1971, having registered the name in the 1930s. The original Corniche was a prototype from 1939 based on the Bentley Mark V featuring coachwork by the Paris firm, 'Carrosserie Vanvooren'. The single car undertook 24000 km of endurance testing in Continental Europe before being blown up by a bomb at Dieppe while waiting at the dockside to be shipped to England.

The Corniche nameplate stems from the originally French and Italian term for a coastal road, especially along the face of a cliff. The car was available as coupé or convertible and used the standard Rolls-Royce V8 engine with an aluminium-silicon alloy block and aluminium cylinder heads with cast iron wet cylinder liners. The bore was 104.1 mm and the stroke was 99.1 mm for a total of 6.75 litre. Twin SU carburettors were initially fitted, but were replaced with a single Solex 4A1 four-barrel carburetor introduced in 1977. Desmogged export models retained the twin SUs until 1980, when Bosch fuel injection was added.

A three-speed automatic transmission, sourced from General Motors, was standard. A four-wheel independent suspension with coil springs was augmented with a hydraulic self-levelling system (using the same system as Citroën, but without pneumatic springs, and with the hydraulic components built under licence by Rolls-Royce), at first on all four, but later on the rear wheels only. Four wheel disc brakes were specified, with ventilated discs added for 1972.

In 1992 the car was reworked as the Corniche IV, presented at the Detroit Auto Show in January that year. By this time production had moved to Crewe, in preparation for the 1994 closure of Mulliner Park Ward. Mechanically, the IV featured the four-speed GM4L80 automatic transmission rather than the previous three-speed GM400 unit. Adaptive suspension was also introduced. Visually there is nearly no difference between the Corniche III and IV except for a glass rear window replacing the previous plastic unit. The top mechanism was improved, no longer requiring manual latching. CFC-free air conditioning was specified, as were driver and passenger airbags.

Production totaled 1090 Rolls-Royce Corniche Saloons, 3239 Rolls-Royce Corniche Convertibles, 69 Bentley Corniche Saloons and 77 Bentley Corniche Convertibles.

Notable owners of Corniches include: Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Tom Jones, Frank Sinatra, Elton John, Liberace, Dean Martin, David Attenborough, James May and even billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.

The car shown here is a European delivered Corniche IV Convertible, from 1996. It was one of the last batch, of six Corniche IV's built for Continental Europe, as certified by Rolls-Royce themselves. This car features a rich dark blue metallic exterior with a luxury cream leather interior. The current owners has had the car for nine years. Before him there were three previous owners whose personalia comes with the documentation of the car. The car has its original interior, the seats are with nice patina, no wear or tear. All electronics and instruments function correctly, the automatic soft top operates flawlessly. The engine runs quietly and the automatic transmission shifts smoothly, without any noises. The car comes with a comprehensive file of invoices and valuation reports of previous ownership. Originally delivered in Belgium, after two years in 1998 it was imported in The Netherlands.

151 352 KM

€95.000,-