Rolls-Royce Phantom at 100 celebrates a century since May 1925, documenting how bespoke commissions reflect evolving cultural values and client creativity.
The Rolls-Royce Phantom has spent a century letting people say exactly who they are. It’s the ultimate blank canvas, reflecting the tastes and values of the world’s wealthiest and most particular buyers.
As the marque hits this centenary, you can track how society, culture and technology have shifted over ten decades through these cars.
But the Phantom itself? Still the same symbol of uncompromising luxury and complete individualisation.
Since May 1925, the Phantom has let owners create something entirely unique. Through bespoke commissions ranging from extravagant to understated, practical to whimsical, generations of clients have left their mark on automotive history.
This isn’t just a story of exceptional cars. It’s a narrative of human ambition, creativity and self-expression told through exquisite details that make each Phantom truly one of a kind.
“The story of Phantom’s first 100 years is uniquely human, told through the Bespoke details commissioned by generations of clients,” says Chris Brownridge, Chief Executive of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. “The evolution of their requests, richly detailed here, reflects profound shifts in society, culture and technology. It also highlights Phantom’s unique capacity to capture its owner’s personal tastes and desires – a quality that continues to draw clients to the marque, and indeed to Phantom itself, today.”
The Art of Coachbuilding: Where Craftsmanship Meets Imagination
In its earliest form, the Phantom worked completely differently from today’s cars. Clients bought a rolling chassis, then commissioned bodywork from specialist coachbuilders.
This created an extraordinary ecosystem of artisans, where master craftspeople transformed engineering excellence into rolling sculptures that matched their clients’ wildest imaginations and most exacting standards.
Many surviving historic examples are monuments to this nearly lost art form. The tradition almost vanished entirely. Until Rolls-Royce brought it back at its Goodwood headquarters through the Coachbuild department.
This revival has reconnected contemporary clients with a golden age of automotive craftsmanship while pushing boundaries even further than their predecessors imagined.
Power, Prestige and the Performance of Status
From the start, the Phantom’s imposing presence and unashamed luxury made it the obvious choice for royalty, heads of state and dignitaries who needed to project influence and authority. The car became far more than transport. It was a mobile stage for power itself.
The earliest Phantom I commissions in the 1920s included elaborate vehicles for India’s Maharajas. These rulers understood spectacle. They commissioned bodywork decorated with intricate silverwork or fabricated entirely in burnished copper.
Those gleaming surfaces were specifically designed to catch and reflect sunlight, creating dazzling displays that commanded attention and communicated status to their subjects.
Nearly half a century later, a Phantom VI built for the Lord Mayor of London showed how bespoke commissions could solve uniquely rarefied problems.
The car featured a specially shaped central armrest in the rear cabin, ingeniously designed to support the impressive but extraordinarily weighty ceremonial mace that formed part of the incumbent’s official regalia during public appearances.
These thoughtful details show how Rolls-Royce has consistently anticipated the specific needs of the world’s most prominent individuals.
Privacy, Mystique and the Architecture of Discretion
Early twentieth-century Phantom owners who occupied positions of power were typically remote figures, rarely seen and largely unknown to the general public. Completely opposite from today’s celebrity culture.
A bespoke Phantom provided the perfect way to preserve their mystique, reinforcing status while granting complete control over exposure to public scrutiny.
Privacy features became central to many commissions. Rear cabins frequently got privacy curtains (a feature still available today), especially popular in India. So-called ‘purdah’ cars were equipped with thick curtains to screen passengers from outside observation, respecting cultural practices while providing luxurious transport.
Other exalted owners took more mechanically innovative approaches to managing visibility. A Phantom IV created for the British Royal Family had rear seats that adjusted back and forth, letting occupants slide themselves in and out of public view as circumstances demanded. Its successor, the Phantom V, featured a transparent Perspex dome that provided the visibility of an open car for ceremonial occasions.
Then official duties concluded, a two-piece aluminium cover, discreetly stowed in the luggage compartment, could be secured over the top to restore complete privacy.
The Celebrity Era: Sanctuary in an Age of Fame
As mass media proliferated through the twentieth century, public interest in prominent people’s lives intensified dramatically. This made the Phantom’s role as a sanctuary even more crucial. Celebrity owners increasingly specified tinted rear windows to shield themselves from prying eyes. Among the first cars in Britain to feature this technology was the Phantom V, commissioned by John Lennon in 1965.
Whether serving public figures or private clients, many Phantoms functioned as mobile offices where confidential discussions could occur without fear of eavesdropping.
Numerous examples featured soundproofed partitions with electric communication controls, letting rear-seat passengers communicate with the chauffeur when necessary while ensuring conversations couldn’t be overheard at other times.
This feature continues in contemporary Phantoms through the marque’s Privacy Suite.
Secrecy manifested in unexpected ways. In 1928, Otto Oppenheimer, a British businessman managing the London operations of the De Beers diamond company, specified his Phantom I (known as ‘The Black Diamond’) with a secret compartment for transporting uncut diamonds.
Its location remained known only to Oppenheimer himself, coachbuilder Hooper & Co., and Rolls-Royce. Almost a century later, this car’s enduring beauty and mystique received recognition when it was named overall winner of the prestigious Cartier Style et Luxe Concours at the 2025 Goodwood Festival of Speed.
The Evolving Language of Luxury: From Opulence to Refinement
The Phantom has long attracted the world’s wealthiest individuals. But how they choose to express success has continually evolved, tracing broader cultural shifts in how society perceives and displays affluence.
When the Phantom debuted in 1925, the Art Deco movement had reached its peak. This sleek industrial aesthetic, characterised by sharp geometric shapes and gleaming metallic surfaces, profoundly influenced automotive design.
The Phantom III, launched in 1936, clearly embodied these principles. One extraordinary example featured polished copper wings, while many more had decorative Art Deco flashes and motifs that captured the optimistic, forward-looking spirit of the era.
These commissions offer vivid insights into period perceptions of luxury, which leaned toward the lavish and opulent. Clients specified gold-plated brightwork, gold and silver inlays, intricate marquetry, exotic wood veneers, and soft furnishings finished in materials like astrakhan wool and damask. The aesthetic was unapologetically maximalist, celebrating wealth through visible extravagance.
Perhaps the most extraordinary commission from this era was ‘The Phantom of Love’, created in 1926 by Clarence Gasque, finance director of Woolworths UK stores, as a gift for his wife, Maude. Inspired by an eighteenth-century sedan chair in the Victoria & Albert Museum, the interior paid tribute to Maude’s passion for French design and history.
With an unlimited budget, Wolverhampton coachbuilders Charles Clark & Sons created an interior worthy of Versailles itself. Complete with Aubusson tapestry upholstery, a hand-painted ceiling with gilded cornices, and a Louis XIV-style drinks cabinet topped with an ormolu clock and porcelain vases filled with gilded metal and enamel flowers.
This era also saw some of the most spectacularly eccentric commissions in Rolls-Royce history. Gerald Tyrwhitt, 14th Baron Berners (famous for dyeing pigeons in various pastel hues at his Oxfordshire estate) specified a clavichord keyboard beneath the front seat. Mrs E. Churchill-Wylie proved even more ambitious, commissioning a Phantom equipped with a bar, gramophone, picnic set, writing desk, cigar cabinet and boot-mounted wash basin.
The following decades saw a gradual shift toward more understated commissions, where material provenance and quality spoke louder than decoration. William Playne Twill (an English interpretation of Scottish tweed) gained popularity for its handsome, pinstriped finish.
Though no longer in production, it’s highly prized by collectors. Equally favoured was ‘West of England’ cloth, sourced from traditional woollen mills in the South West of England and offered in numerous colours.
Her Majesty the Queen favoured Light Grey and Baroda Blue in her Phantoms of the 1950s and 1960s, establishing a template for refined, confident luxury that required no ostentation.
Entertainment, Indulgence and the Social Phantom
As a favourite of crowned heads and the international elite, the Phantom quickly became a fixture of high society. Its first decade was defined by Art Deco elegance. What followed introduced more discreet forms of indulgence that mirrored changing social mores and legal frameworks.
For clients in the United States during Prohibition, the Phantom could offer creative solutions to restrictive legislation. Several socialites (including one of the biggest stars of the silent movie era) specified secret compartments for transporting liquor in defiance of the law.
One Phantom II Continental featured what the order coyly described as a ‘cocktail set’ concealed in the C-pillar, allowing its owner to maintain civilised standards even during uncivilised times.
After the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment in December 1933, drinks cabinets were commissioned more openly, displayed and enjoyed without subterfuge. This spirit of celebration continues in contemporary Phantoms, with Rolls-Royce offering an extensive array of bespoke accessories for those with discriminating tastes, including the Champagne Chest and Cocktail Hamper.
The ethos is woven into the very fabric of the modern Phantom. Its Champagne Cooler features two distinct settings, precisely calibrated for vintage and non-vintage cuvées.
Entertainment extended beyond liquid refreshment. Bespoke features commissioned throughout the decades tracked developments in both technology and society. Phantom II 18GX had a wind-up gramophone.
From the 1930s, radios were widely specified in the Phantom III and subsequent models. In the 1960s, Phantom V 5LVA33 was among the first Rolls-Royce cars fitted with a television, at a time when just one in four British homes possessed one.
The 1960s and 1970s saw television transforming the careers and profiles of a new generation of rock and pop superstars, for whom the Phantom was the only acceptable choice.
These cars featured some of the era’s most sophisticated in-car audio systems, providing a template for today’s Bespoke Audio system. However, one feature (a microphone fitted for Elvis Presley) holds the unique distinction of having been requested only once in the marque’s history.
The Goodwood Renaissance: Contemporary Creativity Without Limits
Phantom commissions during Rolls-Royce’s contemporary Goodwood era have drawn inspiration from an increasingly diverse range of themes. This tracks both the global nature of the reinvigorated brand and the varied lives and passions of clients worldwide.
One Phantom VII commission marked a watershed moment, challenging Rolls-Royce to push its bespoke capabilities beyond craftsmanship into the realm of pure art.
Phantom Serenity combines imperial silk, fine embroidery and hand-painting (the latter requiring artisans to undergo specialist training) to reimagine the rear suite as a garden sanctuary beneath flowering trees.
The response proved instant and global. Serenity had fundamentally expanded the definition of luxury for the twenty-first century.
Similarly transformative was the unveiling of Phantom Drophead Coupé Waterspeed. This car pays tribute to Sir Malcolm Campbell’s record-breaking achievements in the Rolls-Royce-powered Bluebird K3 boat.
Its striking Maggiore Blue paint finish, brushed steel deck and open-pore Abachi wood interior signalled a new era of creative and technical confidence within the Bespoke Collective.
These groundbreaking cars inspired clients to bring increasingly ambitious visions to Goodwood. Among the bespoke Phantoms that Rolls-Royce has been permitted to share publicly is Phantom Syntopia, a collaboration with Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen.
Inspired by the intricate layering techniques of haute couture, this one-of-one commission included a silk headliner that required almost 700 collective hours to complete. Accompanied by its own unique fragrance.
Phantom Scintilla draws creative energy from the marque’s own mythology. Designed to capture the fleeting wonder of the Spirit of Ecstasy figurine’s presence, it incorporates bespoke features inspired by the apparent movement of Eleanor’s robes.
These include expansive interior embroideries comprising 869,500 stitches, and an animated Starlight Headliner completed with 4,450 perforations that reveal subtle flashes of metallic silver fabric beneath.
These extraordinary cars represent merely a glimpse of the diversity of bespoke Phantom commissions created at Goodwood. Each responds singularly to a client’s vision. And with new inspirations drawn from ever more unexpected sources, the next chapter promises to prove even more extraordinary.
A Living Legacy of Cultural Expression
The first century of bespoke Phantom cars underlines a truth: as the ultimate canvas for self-expression, the Phantom reflects its owners and the worlds and eras they inhabit more comprehensively than any other car in history.
Every individual example expresses and preserves the tastes, attitudes, cultural conventions and aesthetic influences of its own time. A unique work of history and art that tells a deeply personal story.
Over a century of evolution, one constant has remained. Through bespoke craftsmanship, the Phantom isn’t merely the best car in the world. It’s the best car for its owner and their world.
As Rolls-Royce looks toward the next century, this commitment to enabling individual expression while tracking cultural evolution ensures that the Phantom will continue serving as both mirror and canvas. Capturing who we are while helping us become who we aspire to be.
