ELECTRIC ROYALTY

An All-Electric Rolls-Royce Phantom V

- JEROME ANDRE

YOU don't drive a Phantom V so much as you enter it, like a private lounge that happens to have license plates. The James Young-bodied 1961 Rolls-Royce before us stretches like a boulevard. Close the coach doors, draw the privacy screen, sink into the immaculate rear bench, and the city recedes to a tasteful blur. There's only the faintest thrum of tires and the soft choreography of air and light. Then it moves silently, and you realize the party trick: this Phantom is all-electric. This car is Lunaz at full stride. From its Silverstone, UK, base, within earshot of Britain's temple of speed, the company doesn't merely "convert" classics; it remasters them. The donor arrives tired, often hiding corrosion under shiny paint. The car leaves after an 18–24-month, nut-and-bolt restoration with modern electrical architecture, a proprietary dual-pack traction battery, and a powertrain calibrated not for drag-strip theatrics but for Rolls-Royce hush. The point isn't to erase the Phantom's character; it's to preserve and elevate it for the twenty-first century.

The Brief: Keep the Phantom a Phantom

A chauffeur car must waft. That's rule one. In the back of Lunaz's 1961 Phantom V, you feel the brand's restraint and taste: the car rises with unflustered intent, gathers pace with a single long gear, and trims speed on regenerative braking that hands off to friction so cleanly you don't spill your champagne. Torque is generous, well north of the original 6.2-liter V8, but never uncouth. This is power you glide on, not brag about.