BMW’s street to proudly owning Rolls-Royce started lengthy earlier than the primary Phantom rolled out of Goodwood. Within the early Nineties, the Munich automaker made an unsuccessful bid to purchase stakes in each Rolls-Royce and Bentley. A decade later, they lastly obtained their likelihood — however not with no sophisticated battle with Volkswagen. At first, VW ended up with the designs, the Spirit of Ecstasy emblem, and the well-known Pantheon grille, whereas BMW solely secured the Rolls-Royce title and logos. For a number of months, it appeared like VW may construct Rolls-Royce automobiles utilizing BMW’s engines beneath a licensing deal. Ultimately, the 2 sides struck an settlement: beginning in 2003, BMW would take full management of Rolls-Royce, whereas VW stored Bentley.
Kickstarting the Rolls-Royce Model
As soon as the settlement was in place, BMW confronted an uncommon problem: launching a brand new Rolls-Royce with no single carryover design or blueprint from the outgoing Silver Seraph. The corporate had the title, the badge, and the model’s heritage — however not one of the bodily parts that made a Rolls immediately recognizable. That meant beginning with a clean sheet of paper, reimagining each line and element from the bottom up.
Designer Ian Cameron set to work adopting the Pantheon grille (which was, at first, off-limits as a part of the model’s mental property) and reimagining the Spirit of Ecstasy for BMW’s first Rolls-Royce, the seventh technology Rolls-Royce Phantom. It changed the Silver Seraph as Rolls’s full-size luxurious sedan, which meant it wanted epic proportions that heralded simply how a lot cash you have been sharing the street with. As such, the Phantom touted a protracted wheelbase and hood and excessive roof with tall wheels and tires. Underneath the hood, the larger-than-life aesthetic continued. BMW bored and stroked their present V12, the N73, to six.75 liters. The brand new mill provided 453 horsepower at 531 pound-feet of torque, with a lot of the torque obtainable from simply 1,000 rpm.
Constructing Intrigue
Much like BMW’s advertising blitz on the US with the MINI model, Rolls-Royce’s debut oozed fashion. The automobile debuted in simply three cities — Culver Metropolis, California, Miami, and Lyndhurst, New Jersey — in nondescript industrial buildings. You would solely be invited if a Rolls-Royce dealership vouched for you and accompanied you to the viewing. The cloak and dagger added to the attract, and it labored. “It had a very James Bond-like high quality, and other people beloved it,” recounts Robert Austin, Rolls-Royce’s North American Communications Director on the time.
The Phantom’s success was sturdy sufficient that BMW quickly started work on a smaller “entry-level” Rolls-Royce, the Ghost. Although nonetheless priced round $280,000, it was marketed because the “on a regular basis” Rolls. As designer Ian Cameron defined to The New York Instances in 2004: “Our house owners sometimes have a five- or six-car storage. The Phantom is likely to be a tuxedo…[the Ghost], a enterprise swimsuit. The tailor cuts the material the identical manner, however the swimsuit is totally different.” As we speak, Rolls-Royce sells greater than ten instances as many automobiles because it did in 2003 — a metamorphosis that started with the Phantom and the extraordinary circumstances of BMW’s takeover. What began as a failed bid within the Nineties turned one among BMW’s most strategic victories, solid in tense negotiations with Volkswagen and the choice to design a Rolls-Royce completely from scratch.
