Tony Gott has unexpectedly resigned as chairman and chief executive of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars after more than two years guiding the German-owned company.

A spokesman for the luxury car-maker said Mr Gott, 48, had resigned with immediate effect "for personal reasons". Mr Gott was unavailable for comment.

He is to be replaced by Karl-Heinz Kalbfell, who presided over BMW's capture of Rolls-Royce between 1999 and 2002.

Mr Kalbfell, 54, has already flown to the UK to take over at the Rolls-Royce factory on the Earl of March's Goodwood estate near Chichester.

BMW now builds four cars a day at Goodwood. Its Phantom model costs £250,000 or more.

The parent company insists Mr Gott left the business in "good shape", with production this year likely to be close to the planned 1,000 annual target.

A Rolls-Royce spokesman said his successor's familiarity with the company should mean production at Goodwood reaching the "high hundreds" by the end of the year.

Last year, the first full year of BMW's ownership after a period under the nominal control of Volkswagen, which lost the rights to the brand in 1998, Rolls-Royce raised production to 480.

BMW has now set up 63 dealerships in 25 countries, including one in Moscow and three in China, where one entrepreneur bought a Rolls-Royce earlier this year.

Colleagues in the UK say they are unaware of any tensions within senior management and insisted the business plan for Rolls-Royce was on course.

However, some reports have suggested there may have been an increasingly poor personal rapport between Mr Gott and Helmut Panke, BMW's chairman.

Mr Kalbfell's relationship with Rolls-Royce Motor Cars goes back six years.

In 1998, soon after Vickers sold Rolls-Royce to BMW, he was appointed project director charged with overseeing design and development of the new Phantom and preparation of the Goodwood factory.

He returned to Munich in 2002 as senior vice-president for group marketing, immediately following Mr Gott's appointment as Rolls-Royce chairman.

Mr Gott first joined Rolls-Royce as an engineer two decades ago.

Friday May 28, 2004