As with buses, so it is with cars: you wait ages for one new extravagantly luxurious model from a legendary British marque and all of a sudden two come along at once. Following hot in the tread marks of the Bentley Brooklands comes the new Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupé.

It is the third new Rolls to be produced since BMW bought the rights to the company and began making them at Goodwood, West Sussex, in 2003. It joins the Drophead Coupé and the original Phantom and will be on sale in the summer.

In the flesh it is an astounding piece of work. Although almost 10in shorter than a Phantom it still looks vast, with a long bonnet, eyes narrowed to mere slits and a flowing roofline that give it an almost unrivalled presence. The Brooklands, which will be its only true rival in the marketplace, looks shy by comparison. And while the ostentatious styling of the Phantom saloon gives that car the demeanour of the slightly unsavoury wealth statement, the emphasis changes completely with this new coupé.

At £298,000 it is staggeringly expensive, but its primary visual aim is not to assert that its occupant is considerably richer than you: it is to suggest that therein sits a design connoisseur, a person who appreciates the finest things in life and just happens to have the wherewithal to acquire them. The difference is subtle, but important.

Even so, it is hard initially to discern the coupé’s real purpose: is it just another take on the Phantom minus a couple of doors and a stack of interior space, or is this a new breed of more sporting Rolls?

At first it seems the answer has been provided by Ian Cameron, who led the team that designed the coupé: “Rolls-Royce has always been about pace, performance and style.” That baffled me: style, yes, but when has a Rolls ever been known for pace and performance?

Until the Phantom arrived almost every Rolls of the past half century has been hopelessly off the pace. And even this coupé’s 453bhp and 531 lb ft of torque sound impressive only until you hear that the cheaper Bentley has 530bhp and 774 lb ft of torque. When they meet for the first time, I strongly suspect the Rolls will barely be able to see which way the Bentley went.

But surely the point of this car is not how fast it will go, but how it goes fast. To that end Rolls-Royce has worked hard to give it a unique feel. There’s firmer suspension for a more sporting feel, revalved steering to make the car seem more connected to the road and a “sport” button on the steering wheel that allows the gearbox to hold on to each ratio for longer to maximise acceleration potential.

It is debatable whether something as arriviste as a sport button should ever be allowed in a Rolls-Royce – my view is the car needs it as much as the Venus de Milo needs a pierced navel – but it does at least give a clue as to what to expect when the manufacturer lets us drive one.

This coupé will be made in tiny quantities – about 200 a year – and Rolls-Royce has its eyes particularly on the Middle East, where convertibles sell slowly because it is often too hot to have the roof down.

Even though I was allowed only to sit in the car – not to travel in or to drive it – I’ll be very surprised if it drives like anything other than a more taut, responsive and engaging Phantom. I hope it’s not actively sporting in nature, for that is not what a Rolls should be about, and I hope most of all that when it does meet the superb Bentley, it is a showdown to befit perhaps the two greatest British marques. Right now, I wouldn’t want to predict a winner.