Tony Gott has been named as the new head of the Rolls-Royce business unit within the BMW Group. BMW will own the Rolls-Royce marque from 2003 when Volkswagen relinquishes the rights to the name under a deal concluded in 1998.

BMW said in a statement today that Gott will take over full responsibility for the Rolls-Royce business unit within BMW Group from 1st March.

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Gott left VW-owned luxury carmaker ‘Rolls-Royce and Bentley Motor Cars’ in November of last year, resigning the post of chief executive by ‘mutual consent’ to ‘pursue new challenges’.

His re-emergence with the future owner of the Rolls-Royce brand is something of a coup for BMW, faced with the mammoth task of setting up a car manufacturing and distribution structure for the ‘new’ Rolls-Royce from scratch.

BMW will make a completely new range of German-designed Rolls-Royce cars in a new factory in the south of England (Goodwood) while VW takes Bentley in a new direction with a new line-up built in the existing factory at Crewe. Gott will complete the initial Rolls-Royce project transfer to the new premises at Goodwood and chair the future company.

At the beginning of 2003 delivery of the first Rolls-Royce motorcar produced at Goodwood is scheduled to take place.

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