MODELS OF THE MARQUE – THE 2000s: THE ROLLS-ROYCE PHANTOM VII – AutoMart Canada

• A brief history of the Rolls-Royce Phantom VII, built between 2002
  and 2017
• The first motor car to be crafted at the Home of Rolls-Royce at Goodwood
• Penultimate chapter in a series celebrating a landmark model from
  each decade of the marque’s history
• Year-long retrospective marks the 120th anniversary of the first
  meeting between Henry Royce and The Hon. Charles Stewart Rolls in 1904

 

“For those of us working at the Home of Rolls-Royce today, Phantom
VII is where it all began. The first motor car ever to be built at
our Global Centre of Luxury Manufacturing Excellence, it ushered in
our modern era in 2003 and, in terms of design, engineering, craft
and manufacturing, set the template for everything we’ve done since.
Though it marked a decisive new beginning for the brand, echoes of
earlier Rolls-Royce models are everywhere: from one angle you see
Silver Shadow, from another Silver Cloud; and elsewhere an
undeniable link to the coachbuilt limousines of earlier decades.
Through these inherited traits, Phantom VII represented an
up-to-the-minute interpretation of the traditional, formal British
saloon. At the same time, it started completely new conversations in
modern luxury, and the unlimited possibilities of Bespoke.”

Andrew Ball, Head of Corporate Relations and Heritage,
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars

At one minute past midnight on 1 January 2003, the
Chairman & Chief Executive of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars handed the
keys of the first Phantom VII to its new owner. The moment marked the
beginning of a new era for the brand and was the culmination of a
process dubbed ‘the last great adventure in automotive history’.

In 1998, BMW Group acquired the rights to manufacture Rolls-Royce
motor cars. In less than five years, it had designed and constructed a
new head office and manufacturing plant, and designed, tested and
built an entirely new motor car worthy of the Rolls-Royce name – a
timescale almost unprecedented in the industry.

THE REBIRTH OF A LEGEND

The design for Phantom VII was initially developed in a secret
studio, discreetly located in a former bank building on the north side
of London’s Hyde Park. For Chief Exterior Designer, Marek Djordjevic,
the project was a dream come true. He was instructed to begin with a
clean sheet of paper, and was given only three stipulations: the car,
codenamed RR01, should have very large wheels; the famous radiator
grille; and, of course, the Spirit of Ecstasy mascot.

To understand the essence of what a Rolls-Royce should be, and
the characteristics that made it so special and identifiable,
Djordjevic turned to designs from the past for inspiration. Three in
particular caught his eye: the classically elegant Silver Cloud; the
contemporary, understated Silver Shadow; and above all, a coachbuilt
Phantom II of the early 1930s.

The heritage Phantom provided him with classic Rolls-Royce
signature elements that would profoundly inform the new model’s
design: a roofline just over twice the height of the wheels; a long
wheelbase, with the front wheels well to the fore and a minimal front
overhang; a long bonnet, visually linked to the passenger cabin by an
accent line of brightwork; and an imaginary line drawn rising from
rear to front along the lower edge of the body, reminiscent of a motor
yacht at speed – the famous ‘waft line’ still exhibited by every
Rolls-Royce model today.

THE EPITOME OF COMFORT

Phantom VII was designed first and foremost around the comfort of its
occupants – an overarching design approach known as the Authority
Concept. The driving position provided a commanding view of the road
ahead, with the primary controls intuitively positioned, in groups and
shapes to make them operable by touch alone so the driver could keep
their eyes on the road. Secondary controls were either concealed in
compartments, such as the centre armrests, or operated by the
Controller. A solid metal cylindrical dial, exposed by opening part of
the front-seat armrest, the Controller took care of functions
including communication, navigation, entertainment and the motor car’s
setting configuration, all displayed on a rotating central fascia screen.

For rear-seat passengers, the Authority Concept manifested
itself in wide, rear-hinged coach doors allowing them to enter and
exit the cabin easily and decorously. Once inside, the doors closed
with the touch of a button. The seats themselves were offered in a
choice of configurations: ‘Individual’ with a fixed centre armrest and
console; or ‘Theatre’ with a raisable armrest and angled side-bolsters
permitting occupants to sit at a slight angle towards one another to
aid conversation. The seats were also slightly higher than the front
seats, so the passengers could see through the windscreen more easily
– and admire the Spirit of Ecstasy proudly crowning the long sweep of
the bonnet ahead.

WHERE PAST AND PRESENT MEET

While Phantom VII’s overall silhouette reflected traditional
Rolls-Royce proportions, and its interior upheld the marque’s
reputation for peerless comfort, its engineering and construction were
at the leading edge of 21st Century technology.

Of all the engineering innovations introduced by Phantom VII,
the most enduringly important was its construction method. Instead of
the usual monocoque structure, in which the bodywork and frame are
integrated into a single shell, Phantom VII was built on an aluminium
spaceframe – a skeletal framework of some 200 extruded sections to
which the suspension, engine and body panels are attached. This method
is often used in racing and high-performance vehicles, owing to its
superior strength-to-weight ratio. The Rolls-Royce version was also
designed around the marque’s requirement for hand-built perfection;
when measured from bumper to bumper, the length of every motor car
built on it would be accurate to within 0.5mm. Achieving this
precision required skilled craftspeople to hand-weld 150 metres of
seams in 2,000 separate locations. The Phantom VII spaceframe provided
the foundations for the contemporary Architecture of Luxury, which
underpins every model built at the Home of Rolls-Royce today.

EXTENDING ITS INFLUENCE

The Architecture of Luxury harnesses another key benefit of the
spaceframe. Infinitely scalable and modifiable, it gives Rolls-Royce
engineers and designers the freedom to create motor cars of different
shapes and dimensions on the same underpinnings. Today, that
remarkable flexibility is demonstrated in models as diverse as Spectre
and Cullinan; but the original Phantom VII spaceframe provided the
first example of this adaptability.

At the 2004 Geneva Motor Show, Rolls-Royce unveiled an experimental
car, 100EX. Four inches shorter than Phantom VII, it was a two-door
drophead coupe, with a V16 cylinder engine and a fabric hood concealed
by marine-style bleached teak decking, inspired by the classic J-Class
racing yacht of the 1930s. It was so well received that a production
version, with a V12 engine, was approved; Phantom Drophead Coupé, as
it was known, is now one of the rarest and most desirable motor cars
of the entire Goodwood era.

The following year, Rolls-Royce launched Phantom VII Extended
Wheelbase (EWB), in which the chassis was lengthened by 250mm (9.8in)
to create additional space in the rear cabin. 

In 2006, another experimental Phantom, 101EX, appeared at Geneva.
This was a fixed-head coupé based on the Drophead, and was the first
to feature the Starlight Headliner now seen on almost every
Rolls-Royce motor car. The Phantom Coupé also became a series
production car, again in extremely limited numbers.

A NEW POWER RISING

Another link to the past was provided by the engine. Rolls-Royce had
used a V12 engine with Phantom III in 1936, and again in Silver Seraph
in the late 1990s. That Phantom VII should be similarly equipped was
obvious and indisputable.

Rolls-Royce’s engineers were aware that the Phantom VII engine
required a significant amount of power to deliver the effortless
‘waftability’ they wanted from their new model. Phantom VII was
therefore fitted with a brand-new, specially designed engine with a
capacity of 6.75 litres – the traditional displacement for a
Rolls-Royce motor car engine. A derivative of this engine is still
used in Rolls-Royce motor cars today – with the obvious exception of
the all-electric Spectre and Black Badge Spectre.

THE ULTIMATE CANVAS FOR BESPOKE

Phantom has long been revered as the ultimate canvas for Bespoke,
enabling clients to create truly singular expressions of their vision.
Among the most notable Private Commissions and Collections were
Phantom Aviator, which paid homage to the golden age of flight with
aviation-inspired details and a cockpit-like interior; Phantom
Serenity, a masterpiece of handwoven silk and delicate embroidery that
redefined luxury craftsmanship; and the Art Deco Collection, which
celebrated the bold geometric forms and opulent materials of the
Roaring Twenties, translating the era’s glamour into a contemporary
Rolls-Royce aesthetic. Each of these creations exemplified the
boundless possibilities of Bespoke, reinforcing Phantom’s status as
the pinnacle of individualisation.

A CRUCIAL LEGACY

Phantom VII remained in production until 2017, when it was replaced
by the current eighth generation. For 14 years, it was the marque’s
pinnacle product and re-established, then reinforced Rolls-Royce’s
long-cherished reputation as ‘the best car in the world’. As the first
– and until the launch of Ghost in 2009, the only – motor car to be
handmade at Goodwood, it was the foundation on which all Rolls-Royce’s
subsequent growth and success was built.