Rolls-Royce Dawn 2020 Review

Rolls-Royce ownership is about many things, but the sense of occasion as you approach, step into and drive one is the ultimate draw. It's not the fastest super-luxury car you can buy, or the best-handling, or the most technologically advanced. But nothing whisks you along a route and wafts you down a road quite like a Roller.

The 2020 Rolls-Royce Dawn is the company's four-seat convertible, or "drophead coupe" in the automaker's parlance. It shares fundamentals with the Rolls-Royce Wraith coupe, but it has mostly bespoke bodywork and engineering modifications to account for the missing architecture associated with its fabric convertible top. You can open or close the top in 22 seconds at speeds up to 31 mph, and when the car is buttoned up, Rolls-Royce claims the Dawn is just as quiet inside as the Wraith.

A turbocharged 6.6-liter V12 engine supplies plenty of power, accelerating the Dawn to 60 mph in a touted 4.7 seconds on the way to a top speed of 155 mph. Dynamic accelerator pedal mapping and GPS satellite-aided shifting help the Dawn immediately respond to driver requests for power. Fuel economy is not this car's forte — it is rated by the EPA at 14 mpg in combined driving.

Naturally, the Dawn is beautifully tailored and equipped, but some features that you might expect to be standard are on the options list, such as ventilated front seats, a high-end audio system and advanced driving assistance systems. But when money is no object, value isn't a part of the lexicon in a traditional sense. Rather, the value in the 2020 Rolls-Royce Dawn is being able to customize the limited-production car in such a way that it's likely you'll own the only example ever built to that specification.

Which Dawn does MatoCar recommend?

The 2020 Rolls-Royce Dawn is available in Base and Black Badge trim, each equipped with a turbocharged 6.6-liter V12. In standard specification, the V12 makes 563 horsepower and 605 lb-ft. In the Black Badge, the engine generates 593 hp and 620 lb-ft. Both versions pair with an eight-speed automatic transmission and rear-wheel drive.

Base Selected highlights of the Dawn's standard equipment list include:

• 20-inch painted aluminum wheels
• Self-righting wheel center caps
• Run-flat tires
• Adaptive air suspension with active stabilizer bars
• Adaptive headlights (swivel as you turn the steering wheel for better illumination in curves)
• Power-retractable Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament
• Stainless-steel exterior trim
• Power-operated coach-style doors
• Vented umbrella storage within the door panels
• Power fabric convertible top
• Four-passenger seating
• Premium leather upholstery
• Open-pore wood trim and paneling
• Four-zone climate control
• 10.25-inch infotainment system display screen
• Rotary infotainment system controller with touchpad
• Voice recognition system
• 16-speaker stereo system
• Front and rear parking sensors
• Forward collision mitigation (warns you of an impending collision and applies the brakes in certain scenarios)
• Lane departure warning (alerts you if the vehicle begins to drift out of its lane)
• Rollover protection system

Black Badge The Black Badge is largely a curated cosmetic enhancement to the Dawn. It includes:

• Additional horsepower and torque
• Gloss-black exterior detailing
• Black interior with limited personalization options

Rolls-Royce also built only 50 of the Silver Bullet Collection model of the Dawn for 2020. It comes with:

• Exclusive ultra-metallic silver paint
• Dark exterior details and headlights
• Silver pinstripe
• Partially polished wheels with a translucent shadow finish
• Open-pore carbon-fiber interior trim
• Quilted-leather transmission tunnel cover
• Aero Cowling over the rear seats to give the car the look and feel of a two-seater