Rolls Royce celebrates 100 years of its pinnacle Phantom product

This year sees the 100th anniversary of the Phantom - Rolls-Royce's most famous motor car - now in its eight generation.

The Goodwood-headquartered firm said that from Henry Royce’s original New Phantom in 2025 to today’s Phantom VIII, the aim has always been the same - to provide the "most magnificent, desirable and, above all, effortless" motor car in the world.

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The Silver Ghost was launched in 1906 and 15 years later the company, advertising in May of 1925 in The Times said it could now "now demonstrate and accept orders for a new 40/50 H.P. chassis" to be known as the "New Phantom".

It assured readers the New Phantom would retain the “sweet running qualities always associated with Rolls-Royce products”.

Back then, Rolls-Royce supplied only the rolling chassis, with the motor car itself in the hands of independent coachbuilders.

With the Second World War came another chapter. By 1939, when war broke out, the Phantom name had graced the very best of the best cars in the world for some 14 years. Rolls - Royce then ceased all car production.

When peace came in 1945, the company found itself in an entirely different world – but one it had anticipated and prepared for, it said.

The solution was the Rationalised Range, which debuted in 1946 with Silver Wraith. The new straight-6-cylinder engine was a backward step from the V12 engine of Phantom III, but was relevant in the straitened times.

Then the pinnacle Rolls-Royce experience became somewhat more widely available once again in 1959 with the launch of Phantom V and 13 years and 832 examples later, Phantom V had received enough technical upgrades to be designated as Phantom VI.

On January 1, 2003, the first Phantom VII was handed over to its new owner. Unlike every Phantom that had gone before, it was built entirely in-house by Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, with spaceframe bodywork to a single design rather than coachbuilt.

And in 2017, the company presented Phantom VIII - specifically designed to be the ultimate canvas for bespoke commissions.

"For 100 years, the Phantom name has occupied a unique position in the Rolls-Royce product family and story," said Rolls-Royce, which is based at Goodwood, West Sussex, and where over 2,500 people work.

"Phantom has always been the grandest, most impressive and, above all, most effortless motor car being built in series production by the marque at any given moment," it added.