Rolls-Royce RR4:

Rolls Royce RR4 to come with suicide doors?

Guess what? The much-awaited Rolls Royce RR4 will hit the streets with a surprising rear suicide doors. You heard it right, folks. RR4 comes equipped with suicide doors. What’s a suicide door, by the way? According to Wikipedia, a suicide door is a car door that is hinged on the edge closer to the rear of the vehicle. The term reflects a perceived increased danger of the door falling open when the car is moving.

For sometime, Rolls Royce officials kept inquiries at bay about the car’s detailed specs except that the designers molded it after the road-hugging BMW-7 series. The usual aluminum-steel base combination provides RR4 the necessary legroom for a comfortable driving.

Now its spy shots showed distinctive improvements. There’s the shorter wheelbase, for a start. This means that RR4 will use the BMW Series -7 platform, but with its own custom-built engine. This was no big deal, of course, since car enthusiasts had already seen it coming. So what’s surprising about RR4? Spy shots showed hinges of its rear doors are built at the rearmost part of the panel, an unmistakable indication of suicide doors. Understandably, its manufacturers will juggle for semantics and call it “coach doors” instead. Rolls Royce RR4, priced at a staggering £170,000, will be officially presented Geneva Motor Show this coming March 2009 and production will begin immediately a year after. Until then, the reason why RR4 has suicide doors is as good as anybody’s guess.

Little Rolls-Royce caught testing

Autocar caught the new Rolls-Royce out testing in the rain – a place that any British car needs to do well. Internally known as the RR4 because this is now the fourth Rolls model, the production version is expected in 2010. It looks like the new car will keep the hallmark suicide doors of its big brothers. Although this is referred to the “baby” Rolls, it is based on the BMW 7-Series, a car that no one accuses of being tiny.

Rolls Royce RR4 will debut at 2009 Geneva Show

First official sketches of the future Rolls Royce RR4 were revealed back in May. Now we find out the car will be revealed at the 2009 Geneva Auto Show. This will first be shown only as concept version, same as the 100EX and 101EX models that previewed Rolls-Royce’s Phantom Drophead and Coupe models.

Although this is the smallest Rolls, there is nothing small about the car, including the engine and the price. At the launch a 6.0-liter V12 engine will power it. The RR4 will go on sale in 2010 and will be limited to only 2000 units a year. It will cost between £160,000 and £175,000. It is likely that the price will be different in the U.S. because at a direct conversion the price tag would be about $340,000, which is currently as much as a Phantom.

2010 Rolls-Royce RR4 will be powered by X6’s V8 twin-turbo

Last month, Rolls Royce unveiled the first sketches of the 2010 RR4, and today Car and Driver announced that future baby Phantom will be powered by a modified version of the V8 twin-turbo from the BMW X6. A diesel option will join the RR4 lineup in the future.

The 2010 RR4 will be priced at around $225,000 and Rolls Royce expect to sell over a 1,000 units a year.

The Rolls-Royce RR4 will share platform with upcoming next-generation 2009 BMW 7-Series. Even though the platform will help cut some of the pounds, the RR4 is still expected to weigh well over 5,000 pounds.

The future luxury sedan will be produced at Goodwood, England plant and sales will begin in the later part of 2009 or early 2010.