For many years it was widely – though not universally – accepted that the title of Best Car in the World belonged to Rolls Royce. One of the world’s best-known and most aspirational brands, recognised far and wide, Rolls Royce symbolised success in a way that no other car did – perhaps still does. Used by royalty and heads of state around the globe, as well as a few ne’er do wells, if you drove a Rolls Royce, you had arrived, you were somebody.
This was despite them not being especially quick, or exotically styled, or the best handling. And yet, few cars transport their driver and passengers in more cosseted luxury, in mechanical silence probably matched only by modern-day electric cars, and with such a sense of occasion, all in a car that until recently, was built by hand by craftsmen with years of training behind them. Beautifully built, painstakingly put together using nothing but the very best materials, there’s a reason why so many used Rollers found themselves pressed into service as wedding cars over the years – after all, for most people, a wedding is one of, if not the, most special occasions of their lives. Unfortunately, it’s also resulted in quite a few being less well maintained than they deserve.
The first Rolls Royce car was built in 1904, with the company being formed in 1906, and for the next five decades the company built only chassis, sending them to various coachbuilders such as James Young or Mulliner Park Ward for the bodies to be added.
Rolls Royce didn’t just build motor cars, of course – in fact, their aero-engine busines was substantially bigger than it’s car business, and it was this that dragged the company into a very difficult period in the 1970’s, including liquidation, nationalisation, a failed flotation and a gradual revival of fortunes leading to a successful flotation in 1987 – I bought some shares myself back then, and even managed to turn a small profit later.
Returning to the cars, the post-war period saw Rolls start to build complete cars using bodies made by Pressed Steel Company, with the first of these being the Silver Dawn, followed by the Silver Cloud, which was built from 1949 to 1965. By the end its production run, however, this big, stately carriage was beginning to show its age, and RR needed to refresh its range, consisting at the time of the Silver Cloud, Phantom V limousine and equivalent Bentley-badged models.
Introduced in 1965, the Silver Shadow represented quite a departure for the Crewe-based company, being the first of the marque to use unitary body and chassis construction. It was also a much more modern design in terms of its styling – a fairly standard three-box, it was hardly streamlined, but it was much less upright than the Cloud, and arguably less interesting. It was also narrower and shorter, yet thanks to its more modern construction, offered increased space for driver and passengers alike, as well as being able to accommodate more of their luggage – assuming it hadn’t been sent on ahead, of course.
The Cloud’s drum brakes were replaced with discs all round, and RR licensed the right to use Citroen’s hydropneumatics suspension system, suitably tweaked to endow the big Rolls with its magic carpet ride. The engine was initially a 6.2-litre V8 producing 172bhp (although Rolls Royce themselves only ever described the power output as “sufficient” – which it was), replaced by a 6.75-litre V8 with increased power output of 189bhp. All Shadows were automatics, of course, with the transmission supplied by General Motors. A maximum speed of 115mph was achievable, with a standing start quarter-mile swallowed up in 17.5 seconds, very respectable for such a big and heavy (2.5 tons) car, though I doubt many were actually driven to the limit.
Besides the conventional 4-door saloon, a 2-door “coupé” and convertible were added to the range, both very handsome and visually a little more interesting to look at, being given the “coke-bottle” treatment by Mulliner Park Ward and which later became the Corniche in 1971. There was also a Bentley version excitingly named the Bentley T, which was a Shadow in all but name and radiator. Indeed, so similar were the two that it’s hard to see the point of the Bentley, but no doubt some folk thought it slightly less ostentatious than sitting behind a Spirit of Ecstasy statuette.
The Shadow I was built from 1965 to 1977 when the facelifted Shadow II was launched, alongside the Bentley T2. Visually, changes were minor, bigger rubber-faced bumpers being the most obvious, with the most significant improvement under the skin in the form of rack-and-pinion steering. There was also a long-wheelbase model, initially still called the Shadow, but this became the Silver Wraith in 1975.
The Shadow II continued to be built until 1985 when it was replaced by the Silver Spirit. This made it the company’s longest-running, and best-selling, range, with just over 30,000 examples built altogether, plus 2,436 Bentley T and T2’s, themselves discontinued in 1980.
At this ultra-luxury level, Rolls/Bentley had few direct rivals, the most obvious one coming in the form of the even more expensive Mercedes-Benz 600, or “Grosser”, or from Japan, the Toyota Century (one of which we featured here), and from the US, perhaps the Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado?
Now I’ve never so much as been a passenger in Rolls, but I have sat inside a few at auctions, and there’s no denying the air of sheer luxury created by the acres of Connolly leather and walnut facings – from 100 year old Circassian walnut trees, of course.
To get an idea of what it was like to drive back in the day, we can turn to our old friend Bill Boddy of Motor Sport who wrote at length about driving a Shadow I while covering 1355 miles over a long weekend back in May 1968 (Long Weekend With A Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow – Motor Sport Magazine).
As you might expect, words such as “dignity”, “comfort” and “luxury” feature, as do “quality” and “opulence”. Boddy was clearly very impressed with the Shadow – his test car from the Rolls Royce demonstration fleet had already racked up 30,000 miles , but proved a thoroughly reliable and of course very comfortable way to cover the miles. Boddy also drove a Shadow II for week in October 1977 by which time the car’s price had increased from £7,895 to over £24,000 and was just as impressed as he had been almost a decade earlier.
For a car that cost more than the average house in the UK for many years (under £13,000 in 1977, around £4,000 in 1968) a Shadow can be very affordable to buy nowadays, in no small part due to the high cost of properly maintaining one – while the cost of acquisition can be as low as £10,000, running costs can be prohibitive, especially if the one you buy hasn’t been properly looked after, so when buying a Rolls, service and maintenance histories matter. Fuel consumption is also in the low double figures per gallon, but then this is a big-engined, heavy car. It’s unlikely to be used for long-distance touring these days, though, so I doubt the fuel thirst would matter quite so much.
All this brings us to our Prime Find this week, which is a 1978 Silver Shadow II, finished in Cardinal Red with Parchment hide seats and beige carpets. Recorded mileage is a very low 45,000, though the advert doesn’t say whether or not this is warranted.
From the photos, this Shadow looks to be in very good shape, and the white leather upholstery – thankfully without any red or any other colour piping – seems to be pretty much unmarked. The deep red suits the car well, and the wheels have matching inserts. There is apparently an excellent service history file, important when buying a car as complicated as a Rolls, but little other information, so if the photos have piqued your interest and you can see yourself wafting around in cossetted luxury, a chat with the dealer should obviously be your first call. The asking price is £18,995, comfortably within our usual budget, and if the car is as sound as it appears, represents a lot of luxury for the money.
As usual, we have borrowed some photos from the dealer’s website, and also as usual – and particularly in the light of so little information being available online – an inspection is highly recommended.
With our Saturday instalment of Prime Find of the Week, we’re offering our services to the classic car community, by passing on our favourite classic car for sale from the week that passed. This top-tip might help a first-time-buyer to own his first classic, or it could even be the perfect motivation for a multiple-classic-car-owner to expand his garage with something different. We’ll let us inspire by anything from a cheap project to a stunning concours exotic, and hope that you will do the same. Just remember – Any Classic is Better than No Classic! We obviously invite our readers to help prospective buyers with your views and maybe even experiences of any given model we feature. Further to that, if you stumble across a classic which you feel we ought to feature as Prime Find of the Week, then please send us a link to primefindoftheweek@viaretro.co.uk