Rolls-Royce makers today said they were confident sales would improve despite only having sold one car this year.

Orders for the renowned cars are yet to take off but Rolls-Royce bosses insist everything is going as planned.

Spokesman Jon Stanley said the low sales were to be expected and the BMW owned company, which built a new manufacturing plant at Goodwood, near Chichester, is still in the early stages of promoting its latest £250,000 Phantom model around the world.

He said: "For UK registrations this year, only one customer car was picked up on January 1.

"Rolls-Royce is a new company and only started producing cars towards the end of last year.

"We launched a new car to the world on January 1 but people seem to think we hit the ground running.

"We are in a 'ramp-up' procedure at the moment.

"For the first quarter of the year, cars have been built for things like the Geneva Motor Show and various launch activities and we are in the process of delivering demonstrator cars to dealers.

"We had no expectation we would launch to the world and suddenly be registering 20 cars a month."

Mr Stanley said orders were "looking healthy" for the rest of the year.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said sales of vehicles slowed by seven per cent in April to 194,312, but the market was expected to improve.