Rolls-Royce slashes Ghost price by $100,000

Rolls-Royce has slashed the price of its most basic model to, er, a little more than half a million dollars.

 Want to drive a bargain? Rolls-Royce has slashed $100,000 off the price of its most affordable model, the Ghost sedan.
 
There is just one catch: it will still cost $545,000 (drive-away, no more to pay) or roughly the average price of a house in Australia.
 
The British brand unveiled the new model in Sydney on Tuesday, announcing that it deleted several luxury items to trim $100,000 off the price.
 
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 The updated Rolls-Royce Ghost Series II no longer comes standard with lambs wool floor mats, a sunroof, remote central locking, electrically-adjusted rear seats or aircraft-style tables that fold down behind the front seats. Instead, these items are now individual options.
 
“We want to make Rolls-Royce more accessible to younger buyers,” said Paul Harris, the Asia-Pacific regional director for Rolls-Royce cars.
 
The price cut comes as figures show Rolls-Royce sales are on a roll in Australia -- up by a staggering 183 per cent -- from, er, 12 deliveries in the first 10 months of last year, to 34 deliveries nationally so far in 2014.
 
Rolls-Royce insists the price cut is not a knee-jerk reaction to the Federal Government’s plan to allow buyers to import new cars privately.
 
When asked if Rolls-Royce was concerned about the Federal Government’s proposal to allow buyers to privately import new cars to save thousands of dollars, Mr Harris said: “It wouldn’t make a difference, our prices are the same across the region, before taxes are included.”
 
When asked if someone imported a new Rolls-Royce from the UK, where they are significantly cheaper, Mr Harris said: “Then the customer wouldn’t have a warranty. The warranty comes with the car delivered by a dealer in Australia.”
 
It may be prudent to have a factory-backed warranty as almost every Rolls-Royce sold in Australia over the 10 years from 2002 to 2012 was recalled two years ago because the brakes could fail, or the car could catch fire.
 
The car industry is fighting the Federal Government’s plan to allow private buyers to import their own cars.
 
Initially, the government thought it would lead to cheaper prices for mass market models.
 
But numerous studies have shown that prices for cars less than the $61,884 Luxury Car Tax threshold are similar to or cheaper than overseas models.
 
However, a large gap emerges above $100,000, where almost all cars are cheaper in Europe and the USA than in Australia.