Rolls-Royce Phantom and Bespoke Craft

A new home at Goodwood

Cars have carried the Rolls-Royce name since 1906. In 1998 the old company's car business was sold, and BMW secured the rights to make Rolls-Royce cars from 2003. It built a new headquarters and factory on the Goodwood Estate near Chichester, West Sussex.

The first car from Goodwood was the Phantom, launched in 2003. Every Rolls-Royce since has been assembled there, with much of the work done by hand.

The eighth-generation Phantom

The current Phantom, the eighth to use the name, was unveiled on 27 July 2017. It sits on an all-aluminium spaceframe that Rolls-Royce calls the Architecture of Luxury and is powered by a 6.75 litre twin-turbocharged V12. An Extended version adds 220 mm to the wheelbase for more rear legroom.

Inside, a glass-fronted panel on the dashboard called the Gallery lets owners commission a piece of art, from painting to sculpture, to sit in front of the passenger.

Much of the cabin is still made by hand at Goodwood. Craftspeople match wood veneers so the grain mirrors from one side of the car to the other, stitch the leather and fit thick carpets and lambswool rugs. The doors at the rear are hinged at the back, which Rolls-Royce calls coach doors, to make getting in and out more graceful.

Stars on the ceiling

One of the brand's best-known options is the Starlight Headliner. Craftspeople hand-place fibre-optic strands through the leather roof lining so that, at night, the ceiling looks like a starry sky. The Phantom Extended's version uses more than 1,500 points of light.

Many Rolls-Royce cars also wear a coachline, a fine painted stripe along the side. It is applied by hand by a specialist painter using a brush, and owners can choose its colour.

Coachbuilding returns

Before the 1950s, wealthy buyers often bought a chassis and had a coachbuilder make the body. Rolls-Royce revived the idea with one-off commissions such as Sweptail in 2017, and in 2021 it presented Boat Tail, a body inspired by yachts, of which three were made.

Watching over every car is the Spirit of Ecstasy, the bonnet mascot sculpted by Charles Sykes in 1911. On modern cars it retracts into the grille at the touch of a button or if someone tries to remove it.

← KoenigseggAzzam →