How ridiculous that this car should be 20 years old. It dates from before the era of smartphones, something that seems to have been with us for ages. In 2003, Roger Federer won his first Grand Slam at the age of 22 and broadband internet was a welcome novelty. Around the time in late November that Concorde made its last flight, this car was probably nearing completion. It’s the 20th Rolls-Royce Phantom built (though not registered until 2004) and was thus one of the first of the Goodwood-era Rolls-Royces. Yet in looks and above all in feel, it’s hardly aged at all.
‘It’s still like a new car,’ says Stephen Fabman-Beker. ‘You press the start button and it fires after a nanosecond. It drives exactly as it did when I acquired it more than 13 years ago: perfectly smooth and silent.’
One advantage of being unusually bold with the styling is that it can take a long time to age, if you judge it well. Step outside the pattern other designers follow, and you don’t fade with the fashion. Rolls-Royce has almost always been good at building cars that were slow to date, usually by being deliberately conservative. But that wasn’t the accusation aimed at the BMW-run firm when the first images of the new model were released to the world. Rather the opposite, and there are
