Motor car handover ceremonies are an important part of the Rolls-Royce experience. But the marque has delivered a very unusual car to an extremely important person in somewhat unusual circumstances.
Rather than the Home of Rolls-Royce at Goodwood, the setting was the playground at St Saviour’s & St Olave’s School, a fully inclusive, highly successful Church of England school for girls in inner-city Southwark, South London. The guest of honour was Sofia, UK regional winner in the marque’s global Young Designer Competition held in 2020.
As part of her prize, Rolls-Royce presented a complete new Greenpower car kit to her school to be used in future events run by the Greenpower Education Trust. This UK-based charity aims to inspire young people to excel in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects through designing, building and racing an electric car.
The kit comprises a standard chassis, motor and batteries. It’s left to the team to design and build the bodywork themselves. Sofia and nine friends, all currently in 8th grade, have formed ‘The Rolls Racers’ to create their car. The team will receive advice and support from Gavin Hartley, Head of Bespoke Design at Rolls-Royce Motor Cars and one of the Young Designer Competition judges.
For all the right reasons, the Greenpower car kit is supplied in a series of highly practical but prosaic packing cases. Rolls-Royce felt this lacked the proper celebratory feel for a national prize-giving. Accordingly, the occasion was graced by the official Greenpower demonstration car, finished in a striking gold livery, and a magnificent Wraith, the most powerful Rolls-Royce ever made, brought to London specially from Goodwood.
Although both cars represent the very best of their kind, neither can match the features or capabilities of Sofia’s winning entry in the Young Designer Competition. Her Bumble Bee 5000 is driverless, and equipped with comfortable tables and chairs, a disco ball, the best surround sound system, WIFI, GPS, a hook for luggage and much more; it also changes colour depending on the occasion or season.
Launched in April 2020, the competition was devised to provide a creative outlet for children aged 16 and under confined by Covid-19 lockdown restrictions. It proved an instant and spectacular success, eventually attracting more than 5,000 entries from over 80 countries.
Asked only to design their ‘dream Rolls-Royce of the future,’ children had complete creative freedom, allowing them to develop ideas of astonishing scope, complexity and vision far beyond the realms of automotive design. Winning entries included designs inspired by (among many other things) unicorns, turtles, space travel, the Egyptian pyramids and Pablo Picasso.
Although the worldwide event ended in June last year, the format is currently being reprised in a Young Designer Competition recently launched by Rolls-Royce Lebanon.
