From Gatsby and Goldfinger to Goodwood, the Rolls-Royce Phantom has shaped a hundred years of culture, carrying royalty, rebels, visionaries, and villains with effortless grace.
In a century crowded with motor cars, only a handful become cultural shorthand. The Rolls-Royce Phantom is one of them - a mobile myth whose presence stretches from Jazz Age mansions to swinging sixties studios, from Bond villains’ lairs to the penthouses of Park Avenue. It is the car that sets the tone, dignifying its owner rather than shouting about them.
Prologue: From Ghost to Phantom (1925)
1925 Rolls Royce Phantom I Sedanca de Ville by Barker & Co.
Credit: Retro AdArchives
The first Phantom appeared in 1925, succeeding the Silver Ghost with a serenity so complete it bordered on the supernatural. Built in Derby and Springfield, Massachusetts, the Phantom I inaugurated the model’s transatlantic identity. American clients favoured Brewster coachwork, including the rakish “Playboy Roadster,” while British traditionalists turned to Barker and Hooper for formal town cars - movable drawing rooms for the ruling classes.
The Jazz Age Phantom: From Mayfair to West Egg
Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby with his 1928 Rolls Royce Phantom I Ascot dual-cowl Phaeton by Brewster.
Credit: TCD/Prod.DB
Nowhere did the Phantom better capture the mood of a decade than in the world conjured by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Robert Redford’s Jay Gatsby drove a yellow Rolls Royce in Jack Clayton’s 1974 adaptation of The Great Gatsby, the spirit is unmistakably Phantom-esque: a great prow of chrome, an air of unapproachable glamour, and the implication that the owner has arrived - not merely at the party, but in life itself. In Gatsby’s hands, the Rolls Royce becomes a character: a beacon, a mask, a metaphor for American aspiration burnished to an English shine.
The Phantom II: The Long, Low Age (1929–1935)
1931 Rolls Royce Phantom II owned by the Maharajah of Jaipur
Credit: National Motor Museum
The Phantom II stretched the silhouette into something cleaner and faster - perfect for an age that admired speed but demanded dignity. Whether gliding through Piccadilly or cruising down Fifth Avenue, these Continentally inspired bodies made motion feel like a privilege rather than a pursuit.
The Whispering V12: Phantom III (1936–1939)
Magazine advertisement for 1936 Rolls Royce Phantom III by Hooper & Co.
Credit: John Frost Newspapers
The final pre-war Phantom introduced a V12 that behaved more like a well-trained butler than an engine. Its silence is now legendary. It is also, strangely, cinematic: if the Phantom II was built for the Jazz Age, the Phantom III feels built for film noir - silent, poised, lurking at kerbsides like a gentleman spy... although the most famous of all Phantom IIIs was the property of a villain.
Auric Goldfinger's 1937 Rolls Royce Phantom III
Credit: Collection Cristophel
In the classic 007 movie, Goldfinger (1964), Auric Goldfinger’s Rolls-Royce became a cinematic accessory to villainy. Laden with smuggled gold, it reminded audiences that a Phantom can just as easily be the chariot of decadence as of decency. It was the perfect adversary to James Bond’s DB5: opulent, inscrutable, utterly unflustered.
Fit for Sovereigns: Phantom IV (1950–1956)
1954 Rolls Royce Phantom IV Limousine by HJ Mulliner for HRH Princess Margaret
Credit: Rolls Royce Motor Cars
Built in microscopic numbers and reserved exclusively for royalty and heads of state, the Phantom IV embodied post-war ceremony. It appeared at coronations, state visits, and moments when the world required pageantry without ostentation. It set the template for the Phantom’s public life: diplomatic rather than dramatic.
The Age of Pageantry & Pop: Phantom V & VI (1959–1991)
Elvis Presley and his 1960 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud II
Credit: ZUMA Press Inc.
The V and VI are the Phantoms most people picture when they hear the name: vast formal saloons by Mulliner Park Ward, bearing flags, crests, and - occasionally - guitars. Elvis Presley acquired his first Rolls Royce in 1960 - a black Silver Cloud II. Three years later, the King of Rock 'n' Roll upgraded to a Phantom V.
Elvis Presley's 1963 Rolls Royce Phantom V
Credit: Bonhams
Presley's Phantom V was originally delivered in midnight blue with a grey cloth interior, but Elvis soon ordered a colour change after a charming domestic complication: his mother’s chickens, apparently captivated by their reflections in the deep, glossy finish, insisted on pecking at the car. The solution was a respray in silver - chosen, according to legend, to make the inevitable paint chips far less conspicuous.
John Lennon's 1965 Rolls Royce Phantom V at Buckingham Palace
Credit: PA Archive
Nothing better demonstrates the Phantom’s cultural elasticity than John Lennon’s 1965 Phantom V. Once a discreet black limousine, it ferried Lennon to the Abbey Road Studios, and, famously, to Buckingham Palace where the Beatles received their MBEs.
John Lennon and his 1965 Rolls Royce Phantom V following the psychedelic paint job
Credit: Keystone Press
The car was reborn in swirling Romany-inspired psychedelia by Dutch art collective The Fool who lived at 34 Montagu Square at the time (read more). A coronation carriage for the counterculture - only a Phantom could hold that contradiction with a straight face.
HM Queen Elizabeth II's 1977 Rolls Royce Phantom VI presented to her during the Silver Jubilee celebrations
Credit: Goddard on the Go
Meanwhile, heads of state, tycoons, sheikhs, studio heads, and rock gods all found something in the Phantom that aligned with their public personas: authority for some, anonymity for others, theatre for a select few.
The Phantom VI ended the century in suitably ceremonial style: the last Rolls-Royce delivered as a bare chassis, destined for the bespoke artistry of classic coachbuilders.
A New Century, A New House: Phantom VII (2003-2017)
2003 Rolls Royce Phantom VII
Credit: Rolls Royce Motorcars
The Phantom returned in 2003 with an aluminium spaceframe, rear-hinged coach doors, and an interior whose silence felt more like architecture than engineering. It was launched from the brand’s new home in Goodwood - an English atelier with global ambitions. America, as ever, received it enthusiastically. On both coasts, it became the car of connoisseurs who value understatement made manifest at size XXL.
The Architecture of Luxury: Phantom VIII (2017–present)
2025 Rolls Royce Phantom VIII Series II
Credit: Rolls Royce Motorcars
Today’s Phantom is a sanctum: formed on Rolls-Royce’s “Architecture of Luxury” and refined with quiet, sculptural grace. It is part motorcar, part salon, part objet d’art - an atmosphere rather than a mere machine. It isn’t driven so much as inhabited.
2025 Rolls Royce Phantom VIII Series II Interior
Credit: Rolls Royce Motorcars
Cultural Resonance: Why the Phantom Persists
2024 Rolls Royce Phantom VIII 'Goldfinger' Edition at Furka Pass
Credit: Rolls Royce Motorcars
The Phantom has survived wars, recessions, revolutions in technology, and shifts in taste because it is more than transportation. It is a symbol. For monarchs, it is continuity. For movie stars, it is mystique. For musicians, it is a backstage lounge with better acoustics. For villains - from Auric Goldfinger to modern tech moguls - it is the car that announces that one need not hurry.
1937 Rolls Royce Phantom III and 2024 Rolls Royce Phantom VIII at Stoke Park
Credit: Rolls Royce Motorcars
Above all, the Phantom occupies a unique aesthetic territory: aristocratic yet adaptable, formal yet playful, stately yet subversive when the moment calls for it. Not many motor cars can carry both a crown and a kaleidoscope.
The Quiet Future
Rolls Royce 103EX vision vehicle
Credit: Rolls Royce Motorcars
As the automotive world electrifies, the Phantom’s destiny feels almost inevitable. Whether powered by pistons, batteries, or something yet unimagined, it will remain the ultimate refuge from the noise of modern life. Its purpose is not to innovate for novelty’s sake, but to preserve an atmosphere: soft carpets, hushed doors, and the sensation that time has been persuaded to behave.
Rolls Royce: creating vision for the next 100 years
Credit: Rolls Royce Motorcars
A century on, the Phantom is still the place where conversations lengthen, voices lower, and life acquires a certain unhurried grace... long may it continue.