Roller coaster

Things haven’t been easy of late for the luxury car market. If you’re struck between a crisis-stricken and environmentally-aware society on the one side, and the new elites of Bitcoin miners and TikTok celebrities on the other, you might have developed some serious doubts as to what luxury really means anymore or indeed what it could be in the future. It’s these kinds of issues that are turning our world inside-out. In the year 2021, you can buy an Ikea bag from Balenciaga for USD 2,000, get more cachet from wearing an Apple Watch than an Audemars Piguet, and be happy with NOT choosing a steak for dinner. We are living in what Rolls-Royce calls a post-opulent era, and even they have had to adjust. And for sure this hasn’t been an easy task, as for the last 110 years this rather eccentric company seemed to delight in snubbing its nose at the market norms. To ensure the exclusivity of one of its models, the Phantom IV, the company decided to sell it only to Roya