ROGER’S ROLLER
It is very easy when talking about Rolls-Royces to quickly get side-tracked onto the subject of money. After all, they are famously expensive to buy new, and fuel economy was never their main priority so fear of the running costs can give the uninitiated a bad case of the collywobbles. Of course, there is always an argument for buying quality that lasts rather than cheap tat which has to be discarded and replaced in short order. I have even heard it claimed that in the long run a Rolls-Royce could end up being the cheapest car to own, but I suspect that only really applies to anybody who bought a 40/50 Silver Ghost in 1907 and still has it today!
The problem with this fixation on money is that it means you can often overlook just what fantastic cars they are to drive. Take this 1978 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow II as an example. From the outside it looks suitably vast and imposing, but get behind the wheel and while the interior is extremely spacious, it doesn’t feel a ridiculously huge car to pilot down the road. In fact it is a very easy vehicle to drive – on a modern car the bonnet slopes away, but on a Shadow
