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Goodwood’s finest – 2003 Rolls-Royce Phantom VII modified for a Duke

This early Phantom VII may be the finest long-journey car money can buy, but it’s also the one its owner has held onto for longer than any other Rolls-Royce or Bentley. An interesting history and unique features only add to the appeal.

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1953 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith Sedanca de Ville Coachwork by Hooper & Co

This is one of a few Rolls-Royces built for the oil millionaire Nubar Gulbenkian and probably the least outrageous, yet it was still enough of a head turner to find itself a movie role in a true cult classic.

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1929 Rolls-Royce Phantom I Barker Pullman Limousine

This fabulous Phantom limousine was bought 94 years ago with the proceeds of crime, and has recently been revived after 30 years in a museum. Now it’s a rich reward for its owner-driver – and sometimes transports the luckiest Dachshunds in the country.

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Swedish-bodied 1921 Rolls-Royces Silver Ghost

One of the most engaging things about many Rolls-Royces is their story – the ups and downs of a long and interesting life. This rare Swedish-bodied 1921 Silver Ghost is no exception, with a tale that takes in Stockholm, Switzerland and now Scotland.

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1998 Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph

The team that created the Silver Seraph couldn’t have known it would be the last Rolls-Royce built at Crewe, nor that it would have such a short life. How has yesterday’s dead end become today’s sought-after classic?

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2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre - the 300-mile test

Who needs a huge V12 when electric power can bring out the qualities that make a Rolls-Royce a Rolls-Royce?

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1930 Rolls-Royce Phantom II by Weymann

Rolls-Royce’s Phantom II defined luxury car supremacy in the early 1930s. Richard Heseltine drives a special Weymann-bodied example that escaped a premature death.

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1984 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur Limousine 36 inch Stretch by Robert Jankel Design

To follow his revealing new history of these cars, Marinus Rijkers drives a 1984 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur limousine stretched by Robert Jankel Design. Step in, sit down, and join us!

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An anatomy of the Rolls-Royce Camargue

When Rolls-Royce collaborated with Italian coachbuilder Pininfarina for its new 1970s flagship, the Camargue was the distinctive but divisive outcome. Almost 50 years on, the car is still a contentious subject.

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1987 Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit

Lee Whiting was five years old when his parents bought him a Flying Lady mascot from a Rolls-Royce. He would polish it to perfection, but did he really believe he might drive a Rolls-Royce of his own one day? Good things come to those who wait!

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2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre

The Spectre emerges out of the mist on an uncharacteristically overcast day of this exclusive drive, not only as the first electric car from Rolls-Royce, but to prove a ghost from the past right.

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1936 Rolls-Royce 25/30 Sports Saloon

Brian Williams came late to the joys of Rolls-Royce ownership. Magnificently capturing the elegance of pre-war luxury motoring, this 25/30hp Sports Saloon has produced a convert with a mission.

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1980 Rolls-Royce Corniche Convertible

This elegant Corniche has found a happy home for life, says its owner. Careful investment and attention has turned a good example into a car to be proud of…and it gets enjoyed, too.

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1926 Rolls-Royce 20hp Saloon by Hooper vs. 1976 Silver Shadow

Though built 50 years apart, these two have something in common: both were make-or-break models for Rolls-Royce. We visit the man who owns them, and drive each car to see how the company’s unique qualities persisted across half a century.

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1967 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow

Unloved for decades, the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow is now back in fashion – and with good reason, argues Mark Dixon.

Editor's comment
No decade for young men

The cultural touchpoints that unify every British child of the ’70s are myriad. On the telly there was Blakes 7 (Glynis Barber, say no more), the memory of your parents hurriedly covering your eyes during the sexy bits of I, Claudius and, because things weren’t quite bleak enough in real life with non-stop power cuts and non-start bin emptying, there was The Survivors to cheer everyone up of any evening.

The pop charts were full of nowdisgraced lascivious men in stacked heels, represented by now-disgraced impresarios and introduced by now-disgraced disc jockeys. Driveways were packed with Marinas, playground arguments were largely over who was the sexiest member of Pan’s People and, inexplicably, Joe Bugner was everywhere. And that is only the tip of the iceberg of the misery. Of course it wasn’t all bad: there was the summer of 1976, and most of all a Corgi 1:43 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow in every toy box. Mine, like most of my friends’, was the far-rareron- the-road MPW two-door (in Silver Sand, I think). If any car reflected the fortunes of the decade itself, the Shadow was it. It went into 1970 as a glamorous five-year-old, the pinnacle of sophistication and class both mechanically and in status, and came out of the 1970s as the slightly tawdry wheels of choice of the more successful northern working men’s club comics. As if things couldn’t get worse, this glorious machine that once laid claim to be The Best Car In The World then had to endure years in the wilderness as the wedding car of choice.

How did everyone – except the wedding hire companies – forget the sheer magnificence of the Silver Shadow? Has there ever been a more dramatic fall from motoring grace? Which is why I am so delighted that the Shadow seems to be enjoying a long overdue rehabilitation. Because of my age, I simply can’t support all the elements of the motoring 1970s that a younger generation now deems acceptable – like russet, saffron and all the other BL euphemisms for excrement-coloured paint – but the re-gentrification of this oncearistocratic Royce (Rolls is for proles, as they used to say) is a cause I can get right behind. The number of its champions has been quietly but steadily growing under the radar, except for Harry Metcalfe whose campaign is rather more public, and prices have been rising accordingly. Good; everyone deserves a second chance.
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