I'm having a long and miserable night because a) I have a head cold and b) I can't get to sleep if my nasal passages are blocked until I'm simply too tired to stay awake any longer, and I haven't quite got there yet. So you get a few more random musings about cars in The Iron Age, specifically to do with Ben Stark's Roller. I happened to be thinking about this a little while ago, and it occurred to me that, though I didn't do it on purpose, the way he acquired the car says something interesting about his character.

You see, in the real world, a Rolls-Royce is a bespoke thing. They don't come from specialty coachbuilders any more, but even in their modern factory-built form they're fantastically expensive custom-built things, with more choices for personalization than you can shake a very fat brochure at. Colors for the carpet, colors for the upholstery, colors (on the Phantom Drophead Coupé) for the soft top - would sir perhaps like the stitching on the seats to be in a tastefully contrasting color to the hides? They offer 44,000 different colors of paint, for Christ's sake (that's true, that is). I've never visited one, so I can't say for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if real Rolls dealerships didn't even have any cars in them, except maybe one or two kept around to make the showroom meet expectations and for prospective customers to (have their chauffeurs) test drive.

So, then, in This Year's Model, we have Mr. Benjamin Stark walking into a Rolls-Royce dealership in a strange city and buying a million-dollar* Silver Spectre Drophead Coupé (the TIA universe's turboelectric successor to the real-life Phantom) off the peg, as it were. "I want to buy that car." "Of course, Mr. Stark. Shall we start the design with the interior or exterior configuration?" "No, no. I want to buy that car. That one sitting right there. The grey one with the brown leather. And I want to take it with me right now."

There's something kind of working-Joe-made-good about that. He doesn't want his name specially engraved on the glove box lid or some fantastically unique combination of paint shade and carpet stitching that no other car on Earth has. He didn't even go in there looking for a Rolls - he was probably going to sniff the Astons - but as soon as he walked into the showroom and saw the car, he thought, "Right, I'll have that one."

It's another indication that he was never really taught how to function as an actual rich guy. I like that about him.

--G.
* A real '08 Phantom Drophead costs around $500,000, if memory serves. I'm making the standard nearish-future SF assumption that Things Cost More in the Future.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I imagine that Rolls dealers are somewhat used to dealing with impatient rich people and prepared to deal with situations like this, even if it is rather declassé.

Polychrome

No doubt.

I didn't know that about Rolls dealerships/vehicles, but somehow it doesn't surprise me. When your production run is maybe 1000 units per year of a given model, it would stand to reason you could offer all that.

>I imagine that Rolls dealers are somewhat used to dealing with
>impatient rich people and prepared to deal with situations like this,
>even if it is rather declassé.
>
I'd agree... and it would be yet another reason just to keep two or three on the lot for people like Ben... Sure, RL Gryph makes good points, but there will still be the occasional person who comes in and says Yes, this is exactly what I want, I'll take it, even if it is, in fact, declasse!

On the third thought, this reminds me... We all speculated, but you never actually answered.

Did Tony really write into his will that Ben needed a blonde with him on any test drives, or were you just playing with us?

>Did Tony really write into his will that Ben needed a blonde with him
>on any test drives, or were you just playing with us?

That would be telling.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Fair enough. It does fit him, though.

“They planned their campaigns just as you might make a splendid piece of harness. It looks very well; and answers very well; until it gets broken; and then you are done for. Now I made my campaigns of ropes. If anything went wrong, I tied a knot; and went on.”
-- Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington