A FITTING FINALE
As with the finest penthouse or multi-million-dollar yacht, the ultimate luxury of a convertible isn’t in the practical but something rather less tangible. That the Silver Shadow-based drophead-coupé – later relaunched as the Corniche – ran from 1967 to 1995 with remarkably few major updates shows how impervious to material change it could be. Its appeal lay far deeper than any need to remain on trend or to bring aesthetic updates purely for the sake of them.
The eventual loss of the Corniche IV in 1995, however, meant the only soft-top emanating from Crewe in the second half of the decade was the Bentley Azure, a model developed from the Continental R coupé. And this left the Rolls-Royce marque without a convertible for the first time in several decades, the company’s focus at the time being on the forthcoming Silver Seraph saloon and its Bentley Arnage sibling. The launch of that duo 1998, however, would be followed by a change of ownership for both Rolls-Royce and Bentley,
