Whetherdeemed long-serving or the-tooth, the SZ-generation Rolls-Royce and Bentley models certainly had a good innings. They had remained in production for the best part of 18 years, and even then, both essentially used an extensive facelift of the old SY platform dating back to 1965. However, they couldn’t go on forever, and when the Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph and its Bentley Arnage cousin arrived as their replacements, the newcomers would break with tradition in more ways than one.
Launched in 1998, both would differ from their predecessors by having engines provided by a third-party vendor, and bodies built at the Crewe factory. But even more notably, they would be launched in the middle of an ownership takeover tussle between two German giants that would ultimately have radical repercussions for their longevity.
THE DEVELOPMENT
The origins of the Silver Seraph and Arnage date back to the days when both marques were owned by British aviation, defence, marine and engineering conglomerate Vickers, which had acquired Rolls-Royce Motors in 1980. It was under Vickers’ watch that Bentley began to properly re-emerge from the shadow of its parent marque.
Restoring a more sporting image to the Flying B with turbocharged models that had more of their own identity rather than being just slightly different to their Rolls-Royce siblings, Bentley rose from representing just five per cent of production when Vickers took over to an impressive 40 per cent by 1986. Five years later it was a 50:50 split between the two, with Bentley’s share still climbing.
However, as the years ticked by it was no secret at Crewe that the longserving Silver Spirit-derived models really needed updating in the face of ever more credible competition from the German premium marques. As BMW and Mercedes-Benz moved their range-topping 7 Series and S-Class further upmarket, laden with technology and even the lure of V12 engines, suddenly the Rolls-Royce and Bentley models – and their dated angular styling – were starting to look old fashioned.
Former Rolls-Royce styling chief Graham Hull points out in his autobiography that the image of Rolls-Royce and Bentley products back then was greatly out of step with financial reality. The cars were produced in a labour-intensive way in an outdated factory; and even though their selling price was high, volumes were low and the lucrative special order work creating one-offs for wealthy customers was a much-needed lifeline. Plans for a replacement four-door model had been simmering since the late 1980s, when project SXB was first tabled. As Hull explains, the initial idea was to share
