Free-Wheeling

Giles Taylor, design director, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, speaks about the design language of the new Phantom, the challenges faced as well as connectivity options.

- Giles Taylor

So it’s here, the eighth-gen Phantom. How proud are you? 

I am very proud to see it in the flesh finally. It’s been five years of hard work, honing the lines until they are perfect like any Rolls-Royce, but with the Phantom it’s somehow special. For me to be here today, it’s eighth-gen Phantom. The first gen was 93 years ago. And the first designer was Sir Henry Royce himself. So it’s an honour for me, a great privilege to present to you the Phantom.

Talk us through the challenges of every designer. When you design a sportscar, you have one mandate. But when you have the mandate of best of both worlds where you have to maintain the heritage and legacy of the Phantom but also cater to the mandates of modern time, so what are the challenges you faced specifically to a car like the Phantom? 

The bedrock of Phantom is somehow classical. It’s this timeless appeal, that as a design team, as a design director I look forward to creating in the new Phantom. I would never revolutionise to the point where the essence of the Phantom is lost. I want somebody to come into this room, look at this design and say that’s the new Phantom. But we have to modernise. Honestly, it’s the side view is where we make the biggest statement of the Phantom 8 versus the older-generation Phantom 7. At the front end I think you will see grace strides forward in terms of the modern, powerful, magnificent, majestic gesture of the Phantom 8. All these combine to give it a modern appeal.

So how much of the seventh gen has been retained in it and how much of it is brand new?