1992 Rolls Royce Corniche Diecast from the Franklin Mint

The 1992 Rolls Royce Corniche from the Franklin Mint is My Diecast Car of the Day™ .

What a beauty, eh? This Franklin Mint 1/18th scale diecast car is a copy of a limited edition model - only 25 built - offered by Rolls Royce in celebration of the Corniche's 21st anniversary. It is painted Ming Blue and has a beautiful Magnolia interior.

As American luxury carmakers like Cadillac and Lincoln were forced by Government regulations and wacky environmentalists to downsize body styles, engines, and gas tanks, Rolls Royce continued to build oversized, gas guzzlers with monstrous engines.


The real Corniche was powered by a 6.75 litre V8, a massive hunk of metal and aluminium that was on par with 1970s American engines like Cadillac's 7.7 litre V8.

The real Corniche is over 204 inches in length, stands as tall as a truck, weighs in excess of 5400 hundred pounds, and averages about eight miles to the gallon/city. Just like your typical 1970s American car.

My diecast Corniche is only about 11 inches long, a couple inches wide, and gets zero miles to the gallon.

I love the design of this car, the Corniche. I love its sleek, Coke-bottle shape, the perfectly proportioned grille, the long wheelbase.


The car continued the tradition of over-sized luxo-barge convertibles that the Americans were so good at during the 1970s. But, alas, by the early 1990s, classics like the El Dorado and Lincoln Mark Series were reduced to chintzy, ill-shaped shadows of their former selves.

The classic Corniche body style remained virtually unchanged for almost three decades. The car died out in the mid 1990s and was replaced by the beautiful Bentley Azure (also a monstrous gas guzzling behemoth). In 2000 a Corniche convertible was offered as a limited edition model. It was styled after the Silver Seraph/Arnage saloon.

The Franklin Mint did a stunning job with this diecast. The paint is deep and rich. The interior is full of neat details like the realistic looking burled walnut dash. The switch gear in the dash and center stack also look very real. Beneath the bonnet is a detailed miniature version of the classic 6.75 litre V8.




Franklin Mint, I salute you on this fantastic diecast.