Saturday, July 10, 2021

St Richard’s Hospital Pediatric Day Surgery Unit in Chichester, West Sussex was given a handmade all-electric Rolls Royce in 2017, so children requiring surgery can drive themselves to the operating room, rather than be wheeled in on a gurney.


The hospital originally used a battery-powered plastic Jeep, but when it broke, staff asked Rolls-Royce if it could perform the repair. Rather than fix the Jeep, the British automaker built a new toy car.

A team created the body shell with carbon-fibre-reinforced fibreglass and painted it with a two-tone finish as they would a real Rolls. The handmade seat is medical-grade vinyl over wood, hot-welded without seams so it could be disinfected, and a custom aluminum foot well lifts out for cleaning. The company also made a laser-etched Rolls Royce badge, 3D-printed dash and wheel caps, and a miniature Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament. The project took about 400 hours to make, with the team donating their time.

Rolls-Royce said the restoration was necessary due to the car’s “singular working conditions,” and that it is “unaware of any other Rolls-Royce being routinely driven along corridors by unlicensed children in a state of nervous excitement.”

It is the smallest Rolls, and the 1st electric Rolls

https://driving.ca/car-culture/vintage-collectible/rolls-royce-technicians-restore-one-of-the-companys-most-important-cars

https://www.bmwblog.com/2017/03/03/rolls-royce-srh-created-st-richards-hospital-pediatric-day-surgery-unit/

1 comment:

  1. Great story! It looks like they even counter-weighted the RR center caps so they would stay upright, like a fullsize Rolls Royce.

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