Anthem for the Phantom

The Phantom name has represented the pinnacle of Rolls-Royce for 100 years, appealing to royals, celebrities and despots in equal measure

- SIMON HUCKNALL/MARTIN BUCKLEY

ROLLS-ROYCE NEW PHANTOM

You could never have accused Rolls-Royce of flooding the market with new models. In the 20 years preceding the New Phantom's arrival in 1925, the Twenty had been the only new production Rolls to join the venerable Silver Ghost in the company's lineup - and that had only appeared three years earlier. This made sense: while the Silver Ghost had quietly evolved since 1906, its reputation - and that of its maker - was built around unrivalled product quality, rather than pursuit of ever-changing technologies. Nonetheless, the Ghost was beginning to look long in the tooth.

The New Phantom ('Phantom I' is a latter-day descriptor) that appeared 100 years ago was, unsurprisingly, based on the outgoing Ghost's 40/50hp chassis and drivetrain, but with some important revisions. The well-proven and durable straight-six, arranged in two groups of three-cylinder iron blocks with a single detachable iron (later aluminium) cylinder head, now had a narrower bore but longer stroke (107.9 x 139.7mm) to displace 7668cc - a 240cc increase, and more than 600cc up on the original Ghost. Overhead valves, operated from a single, crankcase-mounted camshaft via pushrods and rockers, replaced the old model's side valves. And a single-plate clutch improved the Phantom's drivability, versus the Ghost's cone item, with drive to the rear axle via a torque tube into a spiral-bevel live axle.