It's quite a thing to risk a reputation. All the more so if it's a reputation like that of RollsRoyce, already vastly respected by 1920 when a smaller model was first considered. By 1965, when the Silver Shadow was launched, RollsRoyce had become part of the lexicon - stick ‘The Rolls-Royce of…’ to the beginning of any product's description and the world understood you.
Both of these cars, then, had the potential to do a great deal of damage to the reputation established by their predecessors. In the case of the 20hp, it was asked to join the 40/50hp Silver Ghost. This was, of course, called the best car in the world with much justification. It was also the only model Rolls-Royce had made since November 1906. Would shifting back to a two-model approach, with a smaller and less costly car partnering the imperious Ghost, do irreparable damage to the company image? It would, if the new car wasn't good enough.
Then, in the late 1950s, the company was seriously considering an expansion from two models (the Silver Cloud and the ageing, coachbuilt Silver Wraith) to four, if you include the special-order Phantom V that took on the uppermost coachbuilt niche. The smaller three would all be based on new monocoque chassis-body units across three different wheelbases: a short, VB-powered Continental-type coupé badged as a Bentley and codenamed Korea; a medium-sized saloon with a 4-litre, sixcylinder engine badged as either a RollsRoyce or a Bentley (codenamed Tonga and Burma), and
