Rolls Royce is hoping to reverse a decade of decline in the open-top car market with its new Dawn convertible.<br /><br /> Many mass-market consumers have switched to SUVs. <br /><br /> But the new model, unveiled on Tuesday, is aimed at the super-rich. It’s likely that only they can afford to fork out 300,000 euros.<br /><br /> The BMW group is hoping to revive a once-stylish status symbol.<br /><br /> “It possesses a very – what I would call a special – sense of “la Dolce Vita”: a certain seductiveness brought on by that exhilarating <br />feeling of driving with all your wind in your hair,” said Rolls Royce’s CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös.<br /><br /> The company has declined to disclose sales figures for its more expensive Phantom convertible.<br /><br /> Plunging overall sales of convertibles partly reflect the shift in focus among carmakers to China – where the country’s smog-ridden cities are hardly the place for open-top cars.<br /><br /> The new Dawn is a sign that Rolls Royce believes there’s still a market for the convertible – for those with the money.
