The Corniche began in 1971 as Rolls-Royce’s more elegant two-door expression of the Silver Shadow era, created from the company’s Mulliner Park Ward-bodied coupé and drophead traditions. It quickly became one of the marque’s defining postwar luxury models, combining formal styling with open-top grand-touring appeal and a strong association with high-profile ownership. The nameplate covered both fixed-head and convertible forms in its early life, though the two-door saloon was discontinued in 1981 and the convertible continued alone through 1995.
After a five-year gap, the Corniche name returned for a final production chapter in 2000 with the Corniche V. That revival kept the familiar luxury convertible brief alive into the early BMW-era transition period, and production ended in 2002. Because the nameplate was discontinued and later revived, the Corniche is best understood as having multiple separate production periods rather than one continuous run.