Rolls-Royce devotees undeterred by recession

By Kathy Finn
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Grim economy be damned. How glum can you be when surrounded by stately, polished automobile royalty?
There's little to celebrate elsewhere in the car world. On top of that, U.S. stocks are still languishing and the country's jobless rate is at a 26-year high.
But the mood was buoyant at the Rolls-Royce Owners Club, where some 500 members of the U.S.-based club, which also welcomes Bentley enthusiasts, tended their Silver Ghosts and Phantom Vs at the Louisiana Superdome on Saturday.
Judges surveyed rows of gleaming automobiles -- some of them almost a century old. Members sipped champagne and kept their expensive chariots free of fingerprints and dust.
Julius Cohn of White Plains, New York, has spent a fortune restoring and maintaining his 1952 Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn.
"Only 111 of these were made in the left-hand driving type, with a stick shift," Cohn boasted.
Some of the vehicles on display are valued at more than $1 million, but Cohn said pricetags are irrelevant.
"We hope enough people imbue in their children the appreciation of nice things that these cars will always be preserved," he said.
Cohn and others have poured thousands into the vehicles.
Rolls owner Hamilton Dixon of Rome, Georgia, said he once spent $250,000 restoring a Phantom V that he later sold for $95,000. "It costs way more to restore it than what you get for it," Dixon said with a chuckle.
Dixon and his wife, Jane, brought a pristine 1954 Silver Wraith, James Young touring limousine to this year's show.
"It's the same model used for years by the Queen of England," Dixon said. His wife likes to ride in the limousine's plush back seat so she can mimic Queen Elizabeth's genteel wave, he said.
DOLDRUMS IN AUTOS WORLD
The opulence on display contrasted with the doldrums that have hit the autos world -- Chrysler and General Motors collapsed into bankruptcy in the last two months -- amid the global recession, including in the market for new luxury vehicles.
Luxury car manufacturers like Rolls-Royce, owned by Germany's BMW, prospered in the last decade as easy credit prompted U.S. consumers to go on a buying spree that many in the industry thought would last for years. Continued...
Source: Reuters