2012 Rolls Royce Ghost. Diamond Black With Moccasin. on 2040-cars

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First Dawn from Rolls-Royce raises $750k in charity auction

Even for a Rolls-Royce, $750,000 seems like a lot of money. But that's how much one customer paid this past weekend for the privilege of acquiring the very first example of the new Dawn convertible. And we're glad to report that the the money is going to a good place. Rolls-Royce introduced the Dawn this past September at the Frankfurt Motor Show as the convertible counterpart to the Ghost sedan and Wraith coupe. It's set to take on the likes of the Bentley Continental GTC and Mercedes S-Class Cabriolet, packing a 6.6-liter twin-turbo V12 good for 563 horsepower and 575 pound-feet of torque up front and a folding fabric roof over its four-seat cabin. The company's Bespoke division set up this particular example in Andalusian white, with a deep red roof, red coachline, and a corresponding interior in red and white with Indian rosewood paneling and special treadplates. Valued at over $400,000, the vehicle was donated for the charity auction at the Naples Winter Wine Festival held this past Saturday to benefit the Naples Children & Education Foundation. The winning bid of $750,000 was placed by insurance mogul and hedge fund manager Julian Movsesian, pictured inset at left with Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Muller-Otvos. He'll take delivery in April from the dealership in Naples before anyone else gets theirs. Over the same weekend in Arizona, an Acura NSX sold for $1.2 million, a COPO Camaro for $300k, and Jay Leno's Harley-Davidson edition Ford F-150 for $200k – all of them the first of their kind, and all benefiting charitable causes. Related Video: Rolls-Royce Dawn Raises $750,000 For Children's Charities As The Brand Marks A New Era With The Most Social Rolls-Royce Ever NAPLES, Fla., Feb. 1, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- - Dawn brought a winning bid of $750,000 at the 2016 Naples Winter Wine Auction - California area collector to receive the very first Rolls-Royce Dawn globally - Over past 15 years, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars have grossed $4.8M in bids for the auction - Proceeds to benefit Naples Children & Education Foundation It is one thing to bid on a prize as rare as a Bespoke Rolls-Royce and quite another to bid on the once in a generation opportunity to be the first owner of the newest member of the Rolls-Royce Motor Car family, the all-new Dawn.

Former BMW M boss and Maserati CEO killed in freak motorcycle accident

It's a tragic coincidence that on the same weekend the BMW M4 Coupe Concept was introduced in Monterey, one of the men most integral to BMW's M and Motorsports divisions, Karl-Heinz Kalbfell, was killed in England. Kalbfell, a vintage motorcycle enthusiast, was set to compete in the Lansdowne Classic Series at Brands Hatch and had an accident during a practice session. After going wide at Druids Corner and falling, he was hit by a competitor following close behind and died of his injuries after being transported to hospital.
Kalbfell, an engineer, began his career at BMW in 1977 in the communications department; a decade later he was chairman of BMW M GmbH, overseeing development of some of the cars responsible for the myth of M. In 1994 he was named chairman of BMW Motorsport, and his cap full of feathers includes getting the BMW V12 into the McLaren F1, getting the BMW V8 into two Morgan cars, along with developing BMW's Formula One engine and return to the sport. Not incidentally, he also assumed leadership of Project Rolls-Royce after BMW bought the British marque in 1998, which means he oversaw the Goodwood factory upfit and the creation of the Phantom.
He left Rolls-Royce for a brief stint at Fiat, heading Alfa Romeo and Maserati, then went into consulting for clients like Lotus and Paragon, who built the Artega GT. As Autocar notes, Kalbfell "had an abiding sense that customers needed to be attracted to cars by their aura and reputation, not just their engineering." He will be missed.

The UK votes for Brexit and it will impact automakers

It's the first morning after the United Kingdom voted for what's become known as Brexit – that is, to leave the European Union and its tariff-free internal market. Now begins a two-year process in which the UK will have to negotiate with the rest of the EU trading bloc, which is its largest export market, about many things. One of them may be tariffs, and that could severely impact any automaker that builds cars in the UK. This doesn't just mean companies that you think of as British, like Mini and Jaguar. Both of those automakers are owned by foreign companies, incidentally. Mini and Rolls-Royce are owned by BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover by Tata Motors of India, and Bentley by the VW Group. Many other automakers produce cars in the UK for sale within that country and also export to the EU. Tariffs could damage the profits of each of these companies, and perhaps cause them to shift manufacturing out of the UK, significantly damaging the country's resurgent manufacturing industry. Autonews Europe dug up some interesting numbers on that last point. Nissan, the country's second-largest auto producer, builds 475k or so cars in the UK but the vast majority are sent abroad. Toyota built 190k cars last year in Britain, of which 75 percent went to the EU and just 10 percent were sold in the country. Investors are skittish at the news. The value of the pound sterling has plummeted by 8 percent as of this writing, at one point yesterday reaching levels not seen since 1985. Shares at Tata Motors, which counts Jaguar and Land Rover as bright jewels in its portfolio, were off by nearly 12 percent according to Autonews Europe. So what happens next? No one's terribly sure, although the feeling seems to be that the jilted EU will impost tariffs of up to 10 percent on UK exports. It's likely that the UK will reciprocate, and thus it'll be more expensive to buy a European-made car in the UK. Both situations will likely negatively affect the country, as both production of new cars and sales to UK consumers will both fall. Evercore Automotive Research figures the combined damage will be roughly $9b in lost profits to automakers, and an as-of-yet unquantified impact on auto production jobs. Perhaps the EU's leaders in Brussels will be in a better mood in two years, and the process won't devolve into a trade war. In the immediate wake of the Brexit vote, though, the mood is grim, the EU leadership is angry, and investors are spooked.