Myth Buster Rolls-Royce Corniche
Debunking the most common old wives’ tales
1 IT WAS NEW IN 1971
The Corniche was launched in 1971, but it wasn’t new. The name had been used on a 1939 Bentley prototype destroyed by German bombs at Dieppe while waiting to get back to England at the start of WW2. As for the actual model, the two-door Silver Shadowbased models had already been in production since 1966, but just known as Mulliner Park Ward (or MPW) Two-Door Saloons and Silver Shadow Drophead Coupés. Aside from a few tweaks, the only real thing new in 1971 was the applying of the Corniche name to distinguish them further.
2 THEY WERE ALL CONVERTIBLES
This is more of a myth among the general public rather than enthusiasts, but the long run of the convertibles – from 1971 to 1995 – has cemented them in people’s minds as the definitive Corniche model. In reality, there were saloons as well. But these only survived until 1981 and were overshadowed by the far more numerous convertibles. There were 1171 hard-top cars and a total of 6026 soft-tops.
4 BOTH ROLLSROYCES AND BENTLEYS WERE CORNICHES
This is true, but only up until July 1984, despite Rolls-Royce generally badge-engineering Bentleys with different names. However, the Corniche name was bestowed on both RRs and Bentleys. That came to an end in 1984 when, to further the renaissance of the Bentley marque, Rolls-Royce dropped the Corniche name for Winged-B models and applied the muchloved old Continental title instead. This continued until the end of production in 1995, including some Turbo variants. The final 25 RollsRoyces (designated Corniche S) were also turbocharged.