Frederick Henry Royce, the son of an impoverished British miller in Peterborough, had grown into an engineer beyond par, manufacturing electric light fittings, dynamos and cranes. In 1903, he boughthimself a second-hand French Decauville car and soon enough, set out to build a better machine. He called the company Royce Ltd. Around the same time, Charles Stewart Rolls, a young man from an aristocratic English family and a mechanical engineer himself, had set up a car sales firm, CS Rolls and Co. Unhappy with merely importing cars, Rolls wanted a well-built, reliable British car. That’s when he heard of Royce and met up with him at the Midland Hotel in Manchester. Mark the date– May 04, 1904. They inked the deal to make cars called Rolls-Royce. Their cars, they decided, should be named to accentuate silence, swiftness and grace. So you had the Cloud, Ghost, Shadow, Dawn and of course, the Phantom. The first car bearing the Phantom name was built in 1925 – the Phantom I was aimed at owners who would drive themselves and was powered by a 7668cc sixcylinder engine producing 108 bhp. The Phantom III of 1936 was the first Rolls to be powered by a V12 engine, feature independent front suspension, coil springs and hydraulic dampers. The 1950 Phantom IV was exclusive to the royalty and heads of states and was capable of 160 kph.
Add a Comment