“One hundred years ago, Rolls-Royce launched the first motor car to bear what would become the most evocative and enduring nameplate in its history: Phantom. Through eight generations, Phantom’s fundamental purpose as Rolls-Royce’s pinnacle product has always been the same: to be the most magnificent, desirable and, above all, effortless motor car in the world – the very best of the best. In many respects, the history of Phantom is the history of Rolls-Royce itself: always moving with the times and its clients’ needs and requirements, yet never merely following fleeting trends, while resolutely refusing to compromise its core engineering and design principles. We’re proud to continue this tradition of excellence, elegance and serenity into the next 100 years.”
Chris Brownridge, Chief Executive Officer, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars
In 2025, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars marks the centenary of the launch of the first Phantom. Throughout its long history, the Phantom nameplate has been reserved for the grandest, most sophisticated product in the marque’s portfolio – the very apex of excellence.
Each iteration, up to and including the eighth generation being handcrafted at the Home of Rolls-Royce today, has seen advances in design, engineering, materials and technology. Today, Phantom serves as the ultimate blank canvas for Bespoke commissions, where clients can bring their most elaborate, imaginative and personal visions to life.
At the start of Phantom’s anniversary year, Rolls-Royce reveals the fascinating story behind its pinnacle product, and how it earned – and maintained – that reputation through a century of constant, often profound change.
A NEW BEGINNING
Rolls-Royce first earned the accolade of ‘the best car in the world’ with the 40/50 H.P., universally known as the Silver Ghost, launched in 1906. The key to its enormous success was Henry Royce’s principle of constant improvement to its underlying engineering, which he conducted on an almost chassis-by-chassis basis. By 1921, Royce realised the Silver Ghost’s design was reaching the point where no further developments would be possible without compromising either smoothness or reliability.
“Rolls-Royce Ltd beg to announce that, after prolonged tests, they can now demonstrate and accept orders for a new 40/50 H.P. chassis. The 40/50 H.P. chassis hitherto manufactured by them will be sold as before…The original chassis of this type was the famous Silver Ghost, and to prevent confusion such chassis will be known as the Silver Ghost model, whereas the new chassis will be known as the New Phantom.”
Original Advertisement from The Times Newspaper, Saturday 2 May 1925
Though it sounds rather quaint today, this advertisement made history as the first recorded use of the Phantom name.
ONWARDS AND UPWARDS
Over the next four years, Royce continued to refine his design until in 1929, another Times advertisement announced the arrival of Phantom II, featuring numerous engineering improvements and upgraded components. Ironically, the only person who remained unimpressed was Royce himself, who found it too large for his personal use. The designers produced a close-coupled car, 26EX – ‘EX’ standing for ‘Experimental’ – on an adapted short Phantom II chassis, ideal for high-speed, long-distance touring on Europe’s smooth, straight roads. This became the now highly prized Phantom II Continental – perhaps the only pre-Goodwood Phantom in which weight, wind resistance and other performance-related factors were as important as out-and-out passenger comfort.
A NEW POWER RISING
By the time of Royce’s death in 1933, the company had realised that luxury car buyers wanted more power, but without sacrificing comfort or excellence. American competitors including Cadillac, Lincoln and Packard were now producing straight-8, V12 and even V16-cylinder engines, which were rapidly eclipsing the in-line six-cylinder units that had served Rolls-Royce so well for so long.
Launched in 1936, Phantom III was the first to have the V12 engine that remains a defining Phantom characteristic to this today. It was suited to both owner-driver and chauffeured use; and while it couldn’t match its American rivals on price, it remained the only choice for those who wanted the very best.
A CHANGING WORLD
Rolls-Royce ceased all motor car production in 1939. When peace returned in 1945, it found itself in an entirely different world – but one it had anticipated and prepared for. The company had correctly foreseen that under post-war austerity, it would need to make its motor cars less complex, easier to service, much less expensive to produce and able to use common parts. At the same time, it was adamant that there would be no reduction in quality.
Its solution was the Rationalised Range, which debuted in 1946 with Silver Wraith. Its new straight-6-cylinder engine was a backward step from the V12 engine of Phantom III, but relevant in straitened times. There seemed to be no place in the modern world for Phantom.
A ROYAL INTERVENTION
The Phantom story might well have ended there, but for a serendipitous event. In 1950, Rolls-Royce was asked to supply a formal limousine for the British Royal Family, and produced a ‘one-off’ straight-8 long-chassis limousine with coachwork by H. J. Mulliner. During manufacture, the car was given the codename Maharajah, and remains in active service at the Royal Mews under that name to this day.
When requests for similar motor cars followed from other Royalty and Heads of State, Rolls-Royce decided that such prestigious cars were worthy of the Phantom name. Over the next seven years, the marque produced just 18 examples of Phantom IV, including a second motor car for the Royal Mews, a landaulette named Jubilee, delivered in 1954.
THE LAST HURRAH
In 1959, Rolls-Royce launched Phantom V – a limousine with coachwork by both the marque’s in-house coachbuilder, Park Ward & Co., and other independent companies, including James Young Ltd and H. J. Mulliner & Co.
After 13 years and 832 examples – including Canberra I and Canberra II built for Royal service – Phantom V had undergone sufficient technical upgrades to be redesignated as Phantom VI. As with all its forebears, this new iteration prioritised comfort, with separate air conditioning systems for the front and rear compartments. Most of the 374 examples were limousines with coachwork by in-house Mulliner Park Ward Ltd., or James Young Ltd.: the last Phantom VI, a landaulette, was delivered to the Sultan of Brunei in 1993.
Phantom VI was the final body-on-chassis model Rolls-Royce ever produced, and its discontinuation effectively ended the tradition of coachbuilding until it was revived at Goodwood in 2017 with ‘Sweptail’.
PHANTOM REBORN
When BMW Group began planning the first motor car to be built at the new Home of Rolls-Royce at Goodwood, a ‘Phantom-type’ model quickly emerged as the natural and obvious choice. At one minute past midnight, on 1 January 2003, the first Phantom VII was handed over to its new owner. Unlike every Phantom that had gone before, it was built entirely in-house by Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, with spaceframe bodywork to a single design rather than coachbuilt. In one important sense, however, it retained a link with its heritage, in that every car was hand-built by a team of skilled craftspeople. Furthermore, the marque’s Bespoke programme meant Phantom was effectively a blank canvas on which patrons could realise their own visions and desires.
THE EVOLUTION CONTINUES
Over its 13-year lifespan, Phantom VII cemented Rolls-Royce as the world’s pre-eminent super luxury motor manufacturer, and its own place as the marque’s pinnacle product. But just like their predecessors, Rolls-Royce’s designers and engineers understood that perfection is a moving target: that Phantom was never ‘finished’.
In 2017, Rolls-Royce presented Phantom VIII. This was the first Rolls-Royce to be built on the Architecture of Luxury, an advance on the all-aluminium spaceframe used on Phantom VII, and designed to underpin every future motor car produced at Goodwood.
Phantom VIII was specifically designed to be the ultimate canvas for Bespoke commissions. With this in mind, it is the only Rolls-Royce model to feature the Gallery – an uninterrupted swathe of glass that runs the full width of the fascia, behind which the client can display a commissioned work of art or design.
THE ESSENCE OF PHANTOM
For 100 years, the Phantom name has occupied a unique position in the Rolls-Royce product family and story. While the standards of quality, engineering and design are consistent across all Rolls-Royce motor cars, Phantom has always been the grandest, most impressive and, above all, most effortless motor car being built in series production by the marque at any given moment.
Through all its eight generations, Phantom has never been compromised by existing engineering orthodoxy, fleeting trends or development costs. From Henry Royce’s original New Phantom to today’s Phantom VIII, the essential purpose behind Phantom has always remained the same: to build the motor car that offers owner-drivers and passengers alike the most comfortable, satisfying experience available in the world at that moment in time – the unassailable pinnacle of luxury and motoring excellence.
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