3 minute read - 9th January 2025
Rolls-Royce to invest over £300m at Goodwood car factory
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is investing more than £300m to expand its manufacturing facility at Goodwood. The extension will create additional space to meet the growing demand for its increasingly complex and high-value bespoke and coachbuild projects sought by clients. It will also ready the facility for the marque’s transition to an all-battery electric vehicle (BEV) future.
The marque’s 2024 performance saw a record year for bespoke builds, and the third-best sales result in the company’s history. Rolls-Royce bespoke is a service that allows customers to customise their Rolls-Royce cars. Bespoke content value increased 10% on average per motor car year-on-year, reaching the highest level in the company’s history.
This £300m+ investment is the single largest injection of capital since the plant opened on 1 January 2003. At that time, it employed around 300 people and produced just one motor car a day. Although the Goodwood manufacturing plant has undergone significant internal changes over the past 20 years, the building itself has remained largely unchanged, while staff numbers have since increased more than eightfold, and the marque now produces up to 28 motor cars a day.
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Rolls-Royce is to invest over £300m at its headquarters and manufacturing facility in Goodwood / Picture: Rolls-Royce
More than 2,500 people are employed at Goodwood – including many highly skilled manufacturing and craft specialists – as well as around 7,500 people in the company’s wider UK supply chain. In 2023, an independent study by the London School of Economics (LSE) demonstrated that Rolls-Royce Motor Cars contributes around half a billion pounds to the UK economy every year, as a leading representative of ‘UK PLC’.
Planning permission to extend Goodwood was granted in 2024. Fittingly, this milestone was achieved during the year in which Rolls-Royce celebrated the 120th anniversary of the first meeting between its co-founders, The Hon. Charles Stewart Rolls and Henry (later Sir Henry) Royce, on 4 May 1904. Site preparation and landscaping work is now underway.
Rolls-Royce introduced a record four new models in 2024: Cullinan Series II and Ghost Series II, together with the respective Black Badge models. These launches, together with sustained demand for all Rolls-Royce products, contributed to global sales of 5,712 in 2024 – the third-highest annual total ever achieved and in line with the marque’s forecasts and expectations, given the changeover to the new models.
2024 was also the first full year of sales for Rolls-Royce Spectre, which proved even more popular than expected. Spectre was the most requested Rolls-Royce model in Europe last year and the second most demanded globally.
The investment to extend the Goodwood site will enable Rolls-Royce to expand its bespoke and coachbuild capabilities/ Picture: Rolls-Royce
During 2024, the Rolls-Royce bespoke collective of specialist designers, engineers, and craftspeople undertook some of their most creatively daring and technically challenging commissions to date. These projects incorporated innovative materials, features, and craft techniques never seen before on a Rolls-Royce motor car, reflecting each commissioning client’s interests and personality.
In 2025, Rolls-Royce will be unveiling its next electric motor car.
Rolls-Royce delivered 5,712 motor cars in 2024, the third-highest annual sales figure on record / Picture: Rolls-Royce
