Manufacturers  /  Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce

Goodwood, England · est. 1904

Engineering continuity, made individual through coachwork.

Models
13
Top value
€25M
Period
1904–
Explore modelsManufacturer profile
Rolls-Royce — manufacturer stage

Curated entry points

The essential Rolls-Royces

Three cars that explain the manufacturer: its origins, its engineering peak and the shape of its modern ambition.

1906–1926

Silver Ghost

The 40/50 hp that earned the marque its name.

Collectibility
96 / 100
Indicative value
€1.4M
1929–1936

Phantom II

The Continental chassis made it a true grand routier.

Collectibility
88 / 100
Indicative value
€550k
2017

Sweptail

The car that restarted coachbuilding — a single panoramic-roof commission.

Collectibility
90 / 100
Indicative value
€11M

Complete catalogue

Every Rolls-Royce on file

13 models · 3 families

Vintage · Silver Ghost & Phantom

5

The cars that built the legend — the Silver Ghost that won the name, and the pre-war Phantoms that defined the coachbuilt grand car. The blue-chip top of the vintage market.

Post-war Classics

4

The cars of the marque’s great post-war run — the stately Silver Cloud, the monocoque Silver Shadow, and the rakish Corniche and Camargue that brought coachwork into the modern age.

Coachbuild

4

Goodwood’s revival of true coachbuilding — cars designed around a single client and built in ones and threes. The Boat Tail is reputed to be the most expensive new car ever made.

The house

Engineering continuity, made individual through coachwork.

Charles Rolls and Henry Royce met in 1904, and within two years the 40/50 hp Silver Ghost had earned the marque a single, enduring claim: "the best car in the world." It was won on engineering — a six-cylinder engine so smooth and so reliable it made every rival feel unfinished.

For a century the formula held. Royce supplied the chassis and the running gear; the great coachbuilders — Mulliner, Park Ward, Hooper — clothed them to order. A pre-war Phantom or a post-war Silver Cloud was a bespoke object before the word existed, and the best of them are blue-chip collectibles today.

Under Goodwood, Rolls-Royce revived that tradition as a department: Coachbuild. The Sweptail, the Boat Tail and the Droptail are coach-built one-offs and three-offs in the original sense — designed around a single client, and priced as the most expensive new cars in the world.

Founded
1904
Charles Rolls and Henry Royce first met on 4 May; Rolls-Royce Limited was incorporated in 1906.
Record annual deliveries
6,032
Rolls-Royce reported this total for 2023, then the highest annual figure in the marque's history.
Current architecture
Aluminium spaceframe
The proprietary Architecture of Luxury debuted with Phantom and also underpins Ghost, Cullinan and Spectre.
Documented auction sale
$2.97m
Gooding sold the Barker-bodied 1912 Silver Ghost Double Pullman Limousine at Pebble Beach in 2007.

Selected milestones

A bloodline, not a list.

  1. 1904

    Rolls meets Royce

    Charles Rolls agrees to sell every car Henry Royce can build under the combined name.

  2. 1907

    The Silver Ghost proves the chassis

    Chassis 60551 completes the Scottish Reliability Trial and a subsequent run of nearly 15,000 miles, establishing quietness and endurance as engineering claims.

  3. 1925

    Phantom succeeds the 40/50 H.P.

    The New Phantom begins the long-running flagship line while retaining separate-chassis construction.

  4. 1965

    Silver Shadow adopts unit construction

    The first Rolls-Royce sold only as a complete car replaces the traditional rolling chassis with a monocoque body and subframes.

  5. 2003

    Production begins at Goodwood

    Delivery of the first Phantom VII starts the BMW-owned Rolls-Royce Motor Cars operation at its new factory.

  6. 2017

    Coachbuild returns

    Sweptail revives the practice of creating a complete body around one client's brief after a 24-year interruption.

  7. 2023

    Electric deliveries begin

    Spectre becomes the first electric series-production Rolls-Royce delivered to clients.

What defines Rolls-Royce

Quietness by engineering

Balanced engines, isolated structures and acoustic tuning treat refinement as a mechanical requirement.

Commission before catalogue

Coachwork, Bespoke and modern Coachbuild let the client's brief determine the finished car.

Proportion through change

A long bonnet, formal grille and rear-passenger emphasis persist while the underlying construction evolves.

The hands

Who drew and built the Rolls-Royce files

One name in the register stands behind this manufacturer. Their own file follows the work wherever it went.

The whole register of people

The mark

Two letters, one handshake.

The badge is the partnership itself: Rolls the salesman, Royce the engineer, their initials interlocked. The letters were red until the early thirties — and the myth says they turned black in mourning when Royce died in 1933. The record is drier: Royce approved the change himself, before his death, because red clashed with customers’ paintwork.

The figure everyone knows is not the badge at all. Charles Sykes delivered the Spirit of Ecstasy in February 1911, reworked from his earlier figurine The Whisper — Eleanor Thornton with a finger to her lips. In 2020 Pentagram’s Marina Willer did to the monogram what Royce did to the red: removed what got in the way.

Spirit of Ecstasy: Charles Sykes, 1911 · 2020 identity: Marina Willer, Pentagram

Rolls-Royce crest, 1906–1934

1906–1934

The Edwardian mark: heraldry and laurels around the two names.

Rolls-Royce crest, 1911–1973

1911–1973

The interlocked Rs — red until Royce ruled it a clash with the paint.

Rolls-Royce crest, 1973–1998

1973–1998

Boxed in navy — the badge of the newly separate Motors company.

Rolls-Royce crest, 1998–2020

1998–2020

Silver and dimensional — the plate of the BMW era.

2020–

Willer’s redraw: the rectangle removed, the monogram alone.