We've been on a journey with Rolls-Royce for much of 2025, with extensive coverage on how the British marque is celebrating the Phantom's centenary. It began in January, when Rolls-Royce first officially announced the anniversary, and from there, we watched the brand honor its flagship sedan or saloon (if you’re British) in a series of powerful moments throughout the year.
In May, we covered the famous people who've owned a Phantom, from royalty, music legends, to film stars. That same month, we also touched on how a one-off Phantom Goldfinger stole the show at Villa d'Este. The celebrations peaked in August, when all eight generations of the Phantom appeared at Pebble Beach, followed by a tribute to the car’s place in music history. The anniversary came full circle, more recently at the Goodwood Revival, where Rolls-Royce reunited historic Phantoms with period racing.
As the year comes to a close, and to better understand why the Phantom has remained the ultimate motoring benchmark, Rolls-Royce is now taking a moment to reflect upon the Phantom's journey, highlighting some of the key figures and places that defined its century-long legacy.
From the onset, Rolls-Royce positioned itself as the car for people at the pinnacle of their careers. The partnership between Charles Rolls, an aristocrat with a passion for racing, and Henry Royce, the self-taught engineer who built a reputation for reliability, was a perfect match. Their historic collaboration in 1904 would lead to the Silver Ghost, a legendary model that solidified their reputation for building the finest motorcars in the world.
Claude Johnson, often called the "hyphen" in Rolls-Royce, convinced the duo to build it in 1907, and the rest, as we know, is history. After completing a 15,000-mile trial with less than $10 in repairs, the car became a rolling statement: quality outlasts price. That fastidious pursuit for perfection and craftsmanship carried through into the Phantom, which first hit the scene in 1925. From his winter retreat in France, Sir Henry Royce personally oversaw the first Phantom's development at Villa Mimosa, testing cars on the sweeping coastal roads of the Côte d’Azur on the French Riviera.
Today's Canadel wood paneling and Duality Twill fabric can directly trace their origins to that time and place. Back in England, Royce also personally signed off on every component in West Wittering, making 400-mile round trips just to do it. You have to wonder: what other founder would commit to that level of oversight?
London, meanwhile, gave Phantom its cultural gravitas as Charles Rolls had established one of the city’s first luxury car showrooms as early as 1905, near Savile Row, in the upscale Mayfair district. Decades later, in the late the early 2000s, in a Hyde Park studio known as "The Bank," designers created the modern Phantom, borrowing the "waft line" from a 1930s Phantom II.
At precisely 12:01 a.m. on January 1, 2003, the very first Goodwood-era Phantom (now under BMW ownership) began a 4,500-mile crossing of the Australian outback, showing that Rolls-Royce wasn’t just back, but it was once again redefining luxury travel on a global scale. Earlier this year, that same car returned to Goodwood for inspection, a powerful symbolic full-circle moment.
In 2011, Phantom Experimental Electric, or 102EX, hinted at the EV era long before the all-electric Rolls-Royce Spectre coupe became a reality, laying the groundwork for the marque’s future direction. Rolls-Royce’s legacy, of course, extends beyond its cars, because the company’s Merlin engines famously powered Spitfires and Hurricanes during the Battle of Britain, and their post-war expansion into commercial aviation subsidized the craftsmanship of their hand-built cars. As for the Phantom, if its 100-year legacy has been shaped by geography and people, we wonder how the future of this Stately limousine will be shaped over the next century.
Source: Rolls-Royce
