Remember Rolls-Royce’s Project Nightingale? Here’s what it looks like in the real world

Earlier this year, Rolls-Royce announced the grandiosely titled ‘Project Nightingale’. It was to be a 5.76m-long, two-seater convertible with an electric powertrain, and as the first car from Rolls’ exclusive new Coachbuild Collection, just 100 would be built.

But despite its relative rarity, the new droptop will undergo some fairly serious testing. We’re told that the prototype programme has now kicked off in southern Europe, and don’t these pictures make it look like a rather lovely job?

Rolls also tells us that Project Nightingale takes its name from Le Rossignol, which is French for ‘The Nightingale’ and was the name of the house that Henry Royce built for his designers and engineers on the French Riviera.

“Project Nightingale captures the same audacious spirit that drove Sir Henry Royce to build his experimental ‘EX’ motor cars in the 1920s: a desire to discover what Rolls-Royce is truly capable of, unconstrained by convention,” said big boss Chris Brownridge.

“Few motor cars in the marque’s history have asked so much of those who create them. That is why Project Nightingale is being tested with the same rigour with which it was imagined. The programme begins on the roads of Europe, where Rolls-Royce first proved itself to the world a century ago, before continuing across every climate in which our clients may choose to drive. Every detail is being refined to an extraordinary degree, down to the sound of the Piano Boot closing after 15,000 operating cycles. Nothing less would be worthy of the brand, or this truly exceptional motor car.”

As well as that fancy boot, Rolls engineers will be testing their new electric wind deflector and the roof, which is lined with cashmere to reduce road and wind noise. The latter will apparently undergo 10 separate tests of its fabric and closing mechanism at temperatures up to 80°C.

“These extremes reflect the global lifestyles of Project Nightingale’s commissioning clients, who intend to drive their motor cars year-round in every corner of the world,” Rolls tells us.

Let’s hope they all do, because it certainly has some road presence, doesn’t it?