100 years of the Rolls-Royce Phantom

Although there is no specific documentary evidence, it is believed that the Phantom name for one of the models in the Rolls-Royce range was chosen by the company’s energetic and ever-inventive Commercial Managing Director, Claude Goodman Johnson. It is said that Johnson recognised that naming the company’s products could benefit sales, and it was his fertile imagination that produced the inspired ‘Silver Ghost’ as the name for what was a simply titled 40/50 H.P. in 1907.

Johnson clearly understood the power of names like Phantom, Wraith and Ghost to convey the products’ supernatural quietness and ethereal grace; all have graced Rolls-Royce cars in the modern era for precisely the same reason. How different history would have been had one of his more fanciful efforts – The Dreadnought, The Cookie, Yellow Bird, The Elusive Pimpernel – been adopted instead!

In 2025, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars marks the centenary of the launch of the first Phantom. Each of the 8 generations to date has seen advances in design, engineering, materials and technology. Today, the Phantom is the ultimate blank canvas for Bespoke commissions, where customers can personalise their limousine to virtually any specification.

As a Rolls-Royce, the Phantom has always had the same fundamental aim: to provide the most magnificent, desirable and, above all, effortless motor car in the world – the very best of the best.

The best car in the world
Rolls-Royce first earned the accolade of ‘the best car in the world’ with the 40/50 H.P., universally known as the Silver Ghost, launched in 1906. The key to its legendary reputation was Henry Royce’s principle of constant improvement to its underlying engineering, which he conducted on an almost chassis-by-chassis basis.

By 1921, Royce realised the Silver Ghost’s design was reaching the point where no further developments would be possible without compromising either smoothness or reliability – both by now essential elements of the Rolls-Royce character and legend. He therefore began work on its replacement which would be the Phantom.

An advertisement assured readers the New Phantom would retain the ‘sweet running qualities always associated with Rolls-Royce products’. Then as now, the Phantom’s generous proportions enabled owners to specify almost any detail or indulgence they wished.

The design of the first Phantom closely followed that of its predecessor, the Silver Ghost – so closely, in fact, that some modern enthusiasts refer to it as a ‘Super Ghost’. Over the next 4 years, Royce continued to refine his design until, in 1929, came the Phantom II.

And the evolution would continue in the following decades, with each new Phantom cementing Rolls-Royce as the world’s pre-eminent super luxury motor manufacturer, and its own place as the marque’s pinnacle product.

Through all its 8 generations, the Phantom has never been compromised by existing engineering orthodoxy, fleeting trends or development costs. From Henry Royce’s original New Phantom to today’s Phantom VIII, the essential purpose behind the car has always remained the same: to build the motor car that offers owner-drivers and passengers alike the most comfortable, satisfying experience available in the world at that moment in time – the unassailable pinnacle of luxury and motoring excellence.

Rolls-Royce Phantom Goldfinger pays tribute to movie