"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 fixedhead coupé and drophead coupé' until March 1966, 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 a continuation of the 1965 Silver Shadow coupé and 1966 convertible. A Bentley version was also sold, becoming known as the Continental in 1984. From its production in 1921, the finest Bentleys of the post war period were all designated ‘Continental’; a title which was re-introduced in 1984 when the name Corniche was dropped by Bentley. Both Bentley Continental and Rolls-Royce Corniche sold side by side in various guises until 1995, with the choice being purely the buyer’s preference for specification and badge.
This excellent Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible has spent nearly 40 years in the ownership of one family. The first owner, Mr. David Pinto, took delivery of this car in November 1980, the car was finished in the striking colour combination of Claret with matching soft top roof and Magnolia Connolly hide interior. In 1992, he took the car to be cared for by marque specialists, Chelsea Workshop, when the odometer was reading 64,700 miles. Around 2008/9 Mr. Pinto passed away leaving the car to his wife who became the second owner. She placed the car in storage where it remained until 2019 when it was returned to Chelsea Workshop and fully recommissioned at a cost of £9,766. On completion it was sold to a gentleman in Southampton, a Rolls-Royce collector who liked his cars to be perfect. He took the car to Hillier Hill in Buckinghamshire as it had a couple of small engine leaks and instructed them to rebuild the engine, carry out the SU carburettor conversion, rebuild the suspension and brakes. All this work costed £37,000. This lovely Corniche convertible is supplied with a V5C registration document, an MoT test certificate which expires in January 2024 and a large history file which includes the recent invoices from Hillier Hill and Chelsea Workshop. These cars are quintessentially British and are the envy of most to ‘waft’ your way through the country roads in the summer with the roof down or touring Europe in the utmost style and luxury."