Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost

Silver Ghost at a glance

Manchester, Olympia and Derby

Rolls-Royce built the first 40/50 chassis at Henry Royce's works in Manchester. Two show chassis appeared at the Olympia motor show in London in 1906, and the press began test drives in March 1907. In July 1908 production moved to a new factory in Derby.

The phrase "the best car in the world" did not come from the company. English Wikipedia traces it to Autocar in 1907. German Wikipedia adds that a British journalist first used the word "waftability" for the car's effortless progress in 1906, a term still linked with the brand. The early history of the company and its founders is covered in our history of Rolls-Royce.

AX 201: the original Silver Ghost

The car that gave the model its name was chassis 60551, the twelfth 40/50 built, registered AX 201. Claude Johnson ordered it in 1907 as a company demonstrator. It received an open Roi-des-Belges touring body by Barker, aluminium paint and silver-plated fittings, and a plaque under the windscreen read "The Silver Ghost". German Wikipedia adds an aluminium dashboard and green leather seats.

AX 201 took part in the 1907 Scottish Reliability Trial and then in a 15,000-mile (24,000 km) test that included 27 runs between London and Glasgow. In 1908 the company sold it to Sir Daniel Hanbury, who drove it between England and his villa at Alassio in Italy. Rolls-Royce bought it back in 1948 (German Wikipedia says 1945) and used it for publicity; it was restored in 1991 (German Wikipedia: 1989) and kept its metal wheels. After the sale of Rolls-Royce Motors in 1998 it belonged to Bentley Motors, and in January 2020 it was sold to Sir Michael Kadoorie.

Silver Ghost engine and chassis

The engine was a side-valve straight-six, with its cylinders cast in two blocks of three. A seven-bearing crankshaft with pressure lubrication and an enlarged centre main bearing kept vibration low, and every cylinder had two spark plugs. From 1921 buyers could choose magneto or coil ignition. Compared with the 1906 engine, the 1910 enlargement added 392 cc. Output rose from 36 kW (48 bhp) at 1,250 rpm to 60 kW (80 bhp) at 2,250 rpm over the production run, an increase of about two thirds. Our power converter translates these brake-horsepower figures into PS as well. Per litre of displacement the engine was gentle: about 5 kW per litre in 1906 and about 8 kW per litre at the end, figures that explain its quiet, low-revving character. The Alpine Trial cars of 1913, with 56 kW from 7.4 litres, sat in between.

The first cars had a three-speed gearbox; a four-speed gearbox arrived in 1913. Early cars braked the rear wheels with a hand lever and the propeller shaft with a pedal. In 1913 the footbrake moved to drums on the rear axle, and from 1923 four-wheel brakes with a servo were optional. Both axles were rigid, with leaf springs all round. Electric lighting was optional from 1914 and standard from 1919, the year electric starting arrived. The wheelbase grew in steps, from 3,442 mm before 1913 to 3,823 mm for the longest chassis from 1923.

Alpine Eagle, armoured cars and other versions

In the 1912 Austrian Alpine Trial a privately entered three-speed car driven by James Radley failed on the Katschberg Pass. Rolls-Royce returned in 1913 with a team of four cars with four-speed gearboxes and power raised from 45 kW (60 bhp) to 56 kW (75 bhp). The team won six awards, including the Archduke Leopold Cup, and the production replicas, sold as Continental models, became known as Alpine Eagles. During the First World War the chassis and engine became the basis of the Rolls-Royce armoured car, and civil development stopped until the war ended.

Owners and later years

The 40/50 sold to heads of state and public figures. In December 1923 four friends bought one for Woodrow Wilson, modified for his disability; he died in February 1924. T. E. Lawrence used a blue 1909 car, "Blue Mist", as his staff car, and a replica of it was begun in 2018. German Wikipedia notes that AX 201 was one of two Silver Ghosts used in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and lists the model in films from Citizen Kane (1941) to Lawrence of Arabia (1962).

After the war the design aged. Sales fell from 742 in 1913 to 430 in 1922. The New Phantom of 1925 took over, and from then on the older cars were called Silver Ghosts; Rolls-Royce recognised the name officially only in 1925. The successor's story, from the Phantom I to today's car, is in our Rolls-Royce Phantom guide, and the modern car that revived the Ghost name is covered in our Rolls-Royce Ghost overview.

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