Coys Auction - True Greats
Royal Horticultural Halls
Elverton St
Westminster
London SW1

Thursday 4th December 2008

The Phantom II was the last Rolls-Royce model to be overseen into production, with typical gruelling attention to detail, by the remarkable Sir Henry Royce. The Phantom I was really a stop-gap, to a large extent a Silver Ghost with more up-to-date valve gear, but by the end of the 1920s motoring was changing, in particular the way large luxury cars were expected to perform, and the Phantom II of 1929 was Royce‘s response. It impressed from the outset. Wilfred Aston, a motoring writer of the era, produced a suitably jingoistic paeon to his first test drive: "the greatest achievement in the history of a firm second to none in its ability to uphold British engineering prestige.

Gone were the old torque tube and cantilever springs, replaced by underslung semi-elliptics and Hotchkiss drive back axle, and the engine,