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The company says that it has yet to experience any impact from the credit squeeze. Ian Robertson, Rolls-Royce’s managing director, said that the danger is not so much in the spending power of its customers, who are generally very wealthy, but in sentiment. “In the Florida region, we didn’t sell a car for six or seven weeks after Hurricane Katrina. I think people didn’t feel it was right,” Mr Robertson said.

JD Power, the automotive analysis company, is tipping the top-end luxury market to be weaker next year because of the credit crunch, while 2009 is predicted to be flat and 2010 a year of modest growth. It adds, however, that the market is hugely swayed by new products, because there are relatively few models to buy, so the baby Rolls is expected to be very influential in shaping the market.