CarBrandLogos archive · Rolls-Royce · 2003

Rolls-RoycePhantom VII

BMW money, an aluminium spaceframe, and a clean start on a Sussex greenfield site.

Photo: Alexandre Prévot from Nancy, France · CC BY-SA 2.0

The story

A defining chapter in Rolls-Royce history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Rolls-Royce Phantom VII, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

The 1998 break-up of Rolls-Royce and Bentley left BMW with the right to the Rolls-Royce name from 2003 and essentially nothing else: no factory, no workforce, no product. The Phantom was the answer to all three. BMW built a new plant at Goodwood in West Sussex, hired a new team, and launched a car conceived from a blank sheet.

2008-0622-RRPhantom V12 · Bobak Ha'Eri · CC BY 3.0

Design and engineering

The structure is an aluminium spaceframe, stiff and relatively light for a car of this size, clothed in aluminium panels. The engine is a 6.75-litre V12, a capacity chosen for continuity with Crewe tradition, driving through a six-speed ZF automatic and later an eight-speed. Marek Djordjevic's exterior, drawn in 1999, is deliberately upright and slab-sided, with a long bonnet, short front overhang and a high shoulder, and it restored a sense of scale the marque had lost during the 1980s and 1990s. Rear-hinged coach doors returned, with a mechanism to close them at the touch of a button, and Charles Coldham's interior used materials and switchgear that shared nothing visible with BMW.

Rolls-Royce Phantom VII · Thesupermat · CC BY-SA 3.0

2007 Rolls Royce Phantom - Flickr - The Car Spy

In production

Drophead Coupe and Coupe versions followed in 2007 and 2008, the coupe with a brushed steel bonnet. Production ran to 2017, by which time the Phantom had proved that a genuinely large, expensive Rolls-Royce still had a market, and had given the company the platform thinking that produced the Ghost, Cullinan and Phantom VIII.

2007 Rolls Royce Phantom - Flickr - The Car Spy · The Car Spy · CC BY 2.0

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Produced

2003–2017

Engine

6.75&nbsp

Body

4-door saloon

Technical specification

The Phantom VII, in detail.

Production: 2003–2017 (Saloon) ; 2007–2016 (Drophead Coupé) ; 2008–2016 (Coupé)
Class: Full-size luxury car (F-segment; F) ; Ultra-luxury car
Body style: 4-door saloon; 2-door cabriolet; 2-door coupé
Layout: FR Layout
Engine: 6.75 L N73B68 V12 (petrol)
Transmission: 6-speed ZF 6HP transmission; 6HP32 Automatic transmission; automatic (Series I models) ; 8-speed ZF 8HP; 8HP70 automatic (Series II models)
Designer: Marek Djordjevic (exterior: 1999) ; Charles Coldham (interior)
Assembly: United Kingdom: West Sussex, England (Goodwood plant)
Manufacturer: Rolls-Royce Motor Cars (BMW)