Phantom – at the pinnacle of luxury for over 90 years
Like its modern successor, that first generation Phantom was developed in an environment of fevered secrecy, borne of the weight of expectation surrounding such an important car. Lead engineer Ernest Hives even went as far as to scatter armoured plating around the factory to substantiate the project’s codename Eastern Armoured Car (EAC). This kind of fervour and global scrutiny surrounding its development was perhaps not seen again for over seven decades when a small team of engineers and designers ensconced themselves in total secrecy in a disused bank in central London. Their task was to create a Phantom, worthy of the name and reverential to its history, whilst making a truly bold statement on Rolls-Royce’s pinnacle position in a new luxury landscape.
The mission would have been familiar to Hives, who himself was tasked with creating a modern Rolls-Royce for an era of profound change. Both Phantoms I and VII had to plot the marque’s course amidst a backdrop of the shifting tastes and sensibilities of its wealthy patrons.
In designing Phantom VII, the task set before Ian Cameron and his team of designers cannot be overstated. Rolls-Royce, under new custodianship, had just five years to successfully design, develop, engineer and test a motor car worthy of re-entering the consciousness of a rapidly emerging yet increasingly global elite. The world was watching.
Rowing to the safety of pastiche or even tribute to Phantom I and its successors would have been a grave error. The 21st century’s wealthy and influential demanded authenticity and sovereignty in the luxury houses they choose to patronise, so a thoroughly contemporary, singular vision of Rolls-Royce luxury was the only possible path.
3 January 2003 saw Cameron’s vision finally unveiled to the world as the global media descended upon the marque’s factory on only its third day of official operation. Like Hives and his ruse to keep the press off the scent, Phantom VII was designed and developed under a cloak of absolute secrecy. On unveiling that first car, the press were unanimous in their reaction, praising Rolls-Royce and its new custodians for bringing to the world a thoroughly modern interpretation of the classic lines and proportions that had maintained a stately presence at the world’s great occasions for three-quarters of a century.
Underneath that imposing yet elegant coachwork lay the foundations on which the opening passages of the next great chapter in Rolls-Royce history was built. A totally new aluminium spaceframe, designed and engineered for strength and weight-saving, and propelled by a magnificent 6.75l naturally-aspirated V12 Rolls-Royce engine developed the abundant yet whisper-quiet performance that has become the hallmark of modern Rolls-Royces.
Behind Phantom’s now emblematic coach-doors lay an exquisitely crafted interior – realised by using only the finest materials by a new artisanal workforce drawn from the local area’s boat-building and saddle-making industries. These first craftspeople, part of a workforce on that first day of just 350, served as the masters to a burgeoning new generation of 1,700 skilled craftspeople, their careers made possible by the success of the all-important seventh-generation Phantom.
For the first time since the age of the coachbuilder, patrons of luxury were offered true personalisation through the marque’s Bespoke programme, with Phantom serving as an exquisite blank canvas from which its patrons’ boldest visions could be expressed.
Media and customer acclaim soon affirmed that, like Hives, Cameron and his team had re-established the legend of the ‘Best Car in the World’. It was stated at the time, that the establishment of the marque’s centre of excellence and the concurrent development and launch of Phantom in just five years, stood as the ‘last great automotive adventure.’ Phantom once again represented the start of a bold new era – a period many close to the marque acknowledge as the most significant in its history. In just 13 years, Rolls-Royce had established itself once again as the yardstick by which all other luxury goods are judged.