National Geographic Ultimate Car Factories

lt starts with 2,000 welds to build an aluminium spaceframe,

each done by hand.

You need the right skiII and the right feeIing.

Leather hides are cut with laser precision and only the best will do.

It must feeI right. It must have the right touch; it must have the right smeII.

AbsoIuteIy perfect piece of Ieather.

Exotic woods are sculpted into automotive showpieces.

The art of the bookmatcher comes to Iife.

Stately beauty is matched by stunning brawn from a potent V1 2 powerhouse.

It's just Iike being on a magic carpet.

Rolls-Royce is more than just the world's ultimate luxury car.

lt's a British engineering icon.

Everything has to be first cIass.

There's only one place you'll find all this.

The mega-factory of Rolls-Royce Motorcars.

The Rolls-Royce Phantom could have been named the Phoenix

as it represents the rebirth of the legendary motorcar manufacturer

in spectacular 21 st-century fashion.

Not only does it have all the traditionally regal finishes you'd expect,.

a sumptuous interior wrapped in luxurious A-grade European leather,

more polished wood than the average dining room

and the legendary whisper-quiet ride,

but it also offers state-of-the-art technological goodies

like a fibre-optic-illuminated starlight headliner,

a 1 5-speaker, nine-channel, 420-watt commercial-grade Lexicon sound system,

a shift-by-wire six-speed automatic transmission and lots, lots more.

The double-R motorcar brand has been revived with a transfusion of high technology

by current owners, BMW.

EngIish Country Garden

Still, the Phantom manages to remain as British as the umbrellas built into its doors.

That's right - every car comes with Teflon-coated, hideaway umbrellas

that pop out with the touch of a button.

You've got the comfort from inside with the Ieathers and the woods,

which are not onIy comfortabIe but beautifuIIy handcrafted.

That's reaIIy what makes it the finest car in the worId.

But don't let its restrained, aristocratic exterior fool you.

Within this regal beauty, beats a mammoth V1 2

capable of hauling this two and a half ton colossus

from zero to 1 00 kms in just 5.9 seconds.

That's sports car acceleration territory.

New Phantom owner Chuck Kavitsky has wanted his own Rolls-Royce his entire life.

RoIIs-Royce means exceptionaI quaIity, cIassic beauty,

surprising performance.

It is the best, it is simpIy the best.

To build this old world-new world tour de force

requires the fabricating finesse of three mega-factories in two countries.

Goodwood, England, is home to the award-winning,

state-of-the-art Rolls-Royce factory.

Here, a legion of craftspeople hand-builds each car to order.

lt's a process that takes at least two months to complete...for each car.

ln Dingolfing, Germany,

the Phantom's aluminium and steel body gets a corrosion-protection treatment.

But every Phantom gets its start in Unterhollerau, Germany.

Here, over 200 sections of extruded aluminium and 300 alloy parts

are melded and welded to form the car's super-strong spaceframe and body.

To begin, welders place the aluminium sections in fixtures

that hold the parts in near-perfect alignment.

Each fixture provides a custom platform for building a specific part of the spaceframe.

Welded entirely by hand,

the Phantom's body is the largest all-aluminium spaceframe car chassis ever made.

Using aluminium rather than steel saves the Phantom hundreds of kilograms of weight

and makes its chassis stiffer than a Formula One car.

But it also makes the spaceframe very challenging to build.

It's compIex because when you weId parts together, aIuminium parts together,

you aIways get distortion.

It must be absoIuteIy perfect,

so it's important to have peopIe who have feeIing for the materiaI.

The challenge with welding aluminium is this..

if you move too fast the weld can fail when it cools.

But weld too slowly and you risk burning right through the metal, destroying the part.

For weIding aIuminium you need the right skiII and the right feeIing.

If you teach 1 00 peopIe aIuminium weIding, ten out of 1 00 wiII be abIe to manage that.

When all 2,000 welds are done correctly,

the result is a remarkably strong and stiff superstructure.

lt would take four tons of force to bend a one-metre section by just one degree.

Now, a transformative moment,. the attachment of the body panels.

The use of aluminium keeps the body weight down to just 550 kilograms,

200 kilograms lighter than its nearest rival.

The most critical procedure is welding on the roof structure.

First, they lift the enormous aluminium roof panel into place.

ln order to prevent the welding heat from distorting the aluminium roof,

a team of two metalworkers must weld both sides of the roof in complete unison.

The two metalworkers must begin and end their welds

at precisely the same time without stopping.

This simultaneous procedure equalises the impact of the welding process across the roof

and avoids distortion.

This 40cm-weld is one of the longest continual aluminium welds in the auto industry.

And only six out of 1 50 workers here are capable of doing it.

Unfortunately, the long weld leaves a long, ugly seam.

But just wait until this craftsman gets finished with it.

He'll file and sand it until it is as smooth as glass.

The same care is taken when attaching the rest of the Phantom's body panels.

ln some factories, it takes less than an hour to build an entire car.

Here, it may take up to an hour just to fit one section.

Technicians measure and remeasure every gap and fitting,

making minute adjustments until everything fits perfectly.

When all of the body sections are installed, the car is referred to as a body-in-white.

This term is a throwback to the early days of the auto industry

when car bodies were first painted with white primer.

This unrelenting attention to detail

has been a standard practice at Rolls-Royce since the very beginning of the company.

ln 1 903, a little-known but brilliant engineer named Henry Royce bought his first car.

Dissatisfied with the quality of its construction, he decided to build his own.

The car was so good that Royce soon came to the attention of Charles Rolls,

the owner of a successful car dealership in London.

The two teamed up with one aim - to build the very best cars.

They were after exceIIence.

That is borne out by the fact that something Iike 65 per cent

of the products of RoIIs-Royce motorcars are stiII on the road

and there's no other manufacturer in the worId that can boast anywhere near that percentage.

ln 1 906, Rolls-Royce introduced a car that would become an automotive legend

known as the Silver Ghost.

After a record-breaking 1 5,000-mile, nonstop endurance run,

it earned the reputation as the best car in the world.

Over 7,000 of the legendary cars were built

and they became the foundation of the company's success.

The SiIver Ghost was a totaIIy outstanding car.

It was very weII designed and it was very durabIe.

And this enabIed it to what it did. It was a marveIIous thing.

From 1 907 to 1 925, it reaIIy was the top Iuxury car in the worId.

The Rolls-Royce motorcar division flourished,

becoming the conveyance of choice for dignitaries and celebrities.

ln 1 980, it was acquired by the British conglomerate Vickers.

lt soon became clear, however, the grand old brand needed a new lease of life.

They found it in 1 998 with new owners, BMW.

BMWbuilt a new dedicated Rolls-Royce factory in Goodwood, England, with one aim -

build the most luxurious handcrafted car on the market today,

marrying old world craftsmanship with new technology.

The Phantom, introduced in 2003,

is the first incarnation of the new generation of Rolls-Royce motorcars.

Phantom is an expression of what is expected of a RoIIs-Royce.

First of aII, it has to have presence.

SecondIy, it has to have a performance which is more than adequate.

But it has to do that in a very refined way.

Dingolfing, Germany,.

a finished Phantom body-in-white has arrived from nearby Unterhallerau.

The metal frame and body needs a protective coating to help prevent rust and corrosion.

lt's a multi-step process called electrocoating or e-coating.

The Phantom rides an articulating conveyor mechanism called a RoDip.

That's a cross between a car wash and a carnival ride.

The car is submerged into a series of seven chemical baths,

while the conveyor pivots the body up to 360 degrees

to guarantee an even coat inside and out.

The RoDip facility is longer than three football fields

and it takes 45 minutes for each car to pass through it.

The baths of nickel, manganese and zinc phosphate

clean and degrease the body

and add a base layer of corrosion-protection prior to painting.

Then comes the actual e-coating.

The car is given a DC electrical charge

and plunged into a vat containing oppositely-charged primer paint.

Like metal to a magnet, paint solids in the bath adhere to the metal body.

Eventually, every millimetre of the car, inside and out

is coated with a layer of corrosion-preventing primer paint.

The conveyor belt then moves the body-in-white into an oven

where it bakes at 1 70 degrees Celsius for 70 minutes,

hard-bonding the e-coat to the metal.

The new Phantom is now ready for the transport to the UKto become a Rolls-Royce motorcar.

Each new Phantom body-in-white is transported to Great Britain and delivered here,

to the Rolls-Royce headquarters and manufacturing plant in Goodwood.

The Goodwood plant is made up of three principal buildings,.

The pavilion, which houses the company's headquarters,

the surface finish centre where Phantoms get their extraordinary paint and polish,

and assembly, where an army of artisans

turns each Phantom shell into a luxury apartment-on-wheels.

The plant itself was purposely designed to be energy efficient and eco-friendly,

in a way that benefits manufacturing at the same time.

I think it's a great destination both for peopIe who come and work here,

and aIso for customers who come to see their cars being buiIt

and take deIivery of their cars here or indeed come and order a car here.

The surface finish centre is where the newly-delivered Phantom bodies

begin their months-long journey through the Goodwood factory.

First up, painting.

Rolls-Royce cars are known for their impeccable paint finish.

Five layers of paint, including the e-coat, primer, colour,

and two layers of a clear protective top-coat

create unrivalled depth of colour and a flawless mirror-like shine known as a piano finish.

The piano finish, it's pretty weII cIose to a mirror in terms of smoothness.

You can see your face in the finaI finish, it's that fIat.

Achieving that standard entails a 22-step process that combines robotic precision

with human craftsmanship.

ln all, over 45 kilograms of paint is applied.

The hand-sprayers go in and do aII the door shuts,

and then the bits that we can't get with the robots, Iike round hinges and stuff.

Then robots take over and apply primer to the car's exterior.

The only robots used here at Goodwood are those in the paint shop

and they're employed here for a very specific reason.

Paint coIour can vary a IittIe bit, dependent on thickness.

So by using the robots we can ensure exactIy the right amount of paint is Iaid on the car.

You'd have a great difficuIty achieving it by manuaI spray.

The two robots then apply exactly 1 00ml of primer paint per minute

for a completely uniform coating.

Next, it's time for some colour.

This is where each Phantom begins to manifest its own unique identity.

While there is an extensive selection of standard colours,

if you've got the money you can custom-order practically any hue you can imagine.

We have a paIette of around 44,000 coIours.

44,000 colours.

Your car can match a yacht, a corporate colour scheme, or even a favourite handbag.

BasicaIIy, we wiII paint any coIour that any customer wants.