Rolls-Royce Phantom at 100: 2025 Centenary Story in Full
Chris Brownridge, Chief Executive, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, said: “For Rolls-Royce, 2025 has revolved around the centenary of our pinnacle product, Phantom. This was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to honour the stories that built this nameplate’s legend — from the incredible motor cars themselves, the zenith of effortless motoring in their respective eras, to the towering figures in music, art, business and statecraft who have chosen a Phantom of their own. We marked this extraordinary occasion with landmark commissions and exceptional global celebrations that reflect the spirit and stature of our marque today, perfectly setting the tone for Phantom’s next 100 years.”
Throughout 2025, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars celebrated 100 years of Rolls-Royce Phantom, the marque’s pinnacle product and one of the most famous nameplates in luxury car history. The centenary spotlighted the people, places and defining moments that shaped Phantom’s story. It showed how this flagship motor car has reflected the world around it while, in turn, influencing culture.
Sir Henry Royce designed the original ‘New Phantom’, which made its debut in 1925. Over eight generations, Rolls-Royce has continually built Phantom as its grandest, most impressive and effortlessly refined luxury motor car, sustaining a century of engineering excellence and unassailable luxury.
Rolls-Royce brought all eight generations of the Phantom to centenary celebrations around the world. It closed the year by unveiling the Phantom Centenary Private Collection, a Bespoke tribute to its most storied model. Clients worldwide also took delivery of Bespoke Rolls-Royce Phantom commissions in 2025, and many began their commissioning journey years earlier to align with the anniversary. Rolls-Royce completed every Phantom hand-crafted at the Home of Rolls-Royce in Goodwood, West Sussex, with a special centenary chassis plaque so that each motor car could claim a distinctive place in the ongoing Phantom legacy.
Rolls-Royce also revisited Phantom’s wider legacy during the centenary year, drawing on stories shared by clients, the media and the broader public as the celebrations unfolded.
Rolls-Royce celebrated the Phantom nameplate's centenary with the Phantom Centenary Private Collection, limited to 25 examples. This Private Collection blends traditional craft with innovative techniques to explore 100 years of pivotal figures, notable clients, significant models, journeys, places and moments that defined Phantom’s first century. Rolls-Royce finished the iridescent two-tone exterior in Super Champagne Crystal over Arctic White and Black and crowned it with a solid gold Spirit of Ecstasy to recall the elegance of Phantom’s early Hollywood era. Inside, Bespoke details tell Phantom’s story through craft: the Anthology Gallery features sculpted words drawn from a century of media acclaim. At the same time, the rear seats use high-resolution printed and embroidered fabric that a couture atelier developed over the course of a year. The Starlight Headliner captures historic references in 440,000 stitches, and the sculptural doors showcase the marque’s most intricate woodwork to date, combining 3D marquetry, 3D ink layering and 24-carat gold leafing. Together, these elements make it the most complex and technologically ambitious Private Collection Rolls-Royce has produced.
In 2025, Rolls-Royce highlighted Phantom’s place in music by celebrating the artists who chose it as a symbol of success and a source of creative inspiration. From Marlene Dietrich and Liberace to Elvis Presley, Sir Elton John, Pharrell Williams and Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson, these musicians strengthened Phantom’s magnetic presence across generations and genres. Rolls-Royce also brought a famous story to life: Keith Moon’s infamous 21st birthday party, when The Who’s drummer reportedly drove his Rolls-Royce into a swimming pool. Witnesses still recall the details only hazily, yet the image of a Rolls-Royce in a pool became a lasting symbol of rock ‘n’ roll indulgence. To mark the centenary, Rolls-Royce submerged a Phantom Extended body shell, a retired prototype destined for recycling, in the Art Deco Tinside Lido in Plymouth, England. The setting also carries Beatles heritage because, on 12 September 1967, The Beatles visited while filming The Magical Mystery Tour. In that same year, John Lennon debuted his yellow, hand-painted Phantom V, which helped cement the nameplate’s place in music history.
Rolls-Royce also reflected on Phantom’s longstanding connection to the art world. Salvador Dalí once filled a friend’s Phantom with 500kg of cauliflowers and then opened the door on arrival at the Sorbonne in Paris, sending the brassicas cascading to the ground. Rolls-Royce commemorated this surreal moment, which reaches its 70th anniversary on 26 December, 2025, and it revisited other stories from creative figures who shaped the conversation around Phantom. Andy Warhol, for example, reportedly bought a 1937 model on the spot after he spotted it parked outside a Zurich antiques shop in 1972.
Clients recognised the significance of the Rolls-Royce Phantom centenary and commissioned Bespoke motor cars for delivery in 2025, often years in advance. Rolls-Royce Bespoke Collective specialists and resident designers developed these ambitious projects across the Private Offices in Shanghai, Dubai, Seoul and New York, alongside the original Bespoke home at Goodwood. Rolls-Royce created Phantom Year of the Dragon as a one-of-one Phantom Extended for a Chinese client to mark the Year of the Dragon, drawing on one of China’s foundational legends. The Gallery features dramatic marquetry showing two dragons swirling through clouds as they guard a central pearl, which the design represents with a Bespoke clock. At the same time, the Bespoke Starlight Headliner displays the dragons through 768 red and 576 white fibre-optic ‘stars’, each placed by hand.
Rolls-Royce created Phantom Cherry Blossom for a Japanese client, taking inspiration from Hanami and the fleeting beauty of springtime Sakura blooms. The rear cabin introduces the marque’s first use of sculptural 3D embroidery, which forms cherry petals from layered, self-supporting thread structures. Rolls-Royce also embroidered the Starlight Headliner with cascading cherry branches, completing an interior that totals more than 250,000 stitches.
Rolls-Royce built Phantom Dentelle as a one-of-one tribute to couture lace, using embroidery to translate delicate, three-dimensional textures into the Gallery and rear Waterfall section. The interior features more than 230,000 stitches across eight embroidery techniques, and it combines Rose Gold, Oatmeal and Sunrise threads to evoke pearls and floral filigree.
Rolls-Royce commissioned Phantom Chinese Mural Art as one of a trio of Bespoke motor cars through Private Office Shanghai, paying tribute to the ancient Dunhuang mural paintings in China. Rolls-Royce commissioned a landscape painting on black leather for the Gallery, using an adapted Chinese reduction block-printing technique. The Silken Spirit motif, inspired by imperial silk and the Spirit of Ecstasy, appears across the hand-painted Coachline, interior embroidery, wood inlays and illuminated treadplates.
Rolls-Royce placed Phantom on a global stage throughout the centenary year and hosted commemorative events across five continents, from prestigious concours to intimate gatherings. The programme began at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in Italy, then moved to the Goodwood Festival of Speed and Goodwood Revival in the UK, where five historic Phantoms, including the celebrated Phantom I ‘Brougham De Ville’, or ‘Phantom of Love’, appeared on the Aerodrome Lawn. In Spain, Rolls-Royce showcased all eight generations of Phantom at Torre Loizaga in Bilbao. A celebratory drive across Scandinavia and the Baltics took members of the 20-Ghost Club more than 2,000 kilometres from Helsinki, where a Phantom VIII waved off the cavalcade, through Nordic landscapes in 26 pre-War Rolls-Royces, including three Phantom I examples—the oldest participating motor car dated from 1927.
Rolls-Royce continued the celebrations in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic, by marking Phantom’s cultural role during the city’s renowned film festival. In Warsaw, Poland, Rolls-Royce hosted a jazz evening featuring vocalist Stacey Kent, while in Baku, Azerbaijan, an exclusive cultural club paid tribute to Phantom’s musical connections and its appearance in song lyrics across styles and generations. In North America, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance honoured Phantom’s centenary with a dedicated class that united eight generations of Rolls-Royce Phantom. Rolls-Royce also marked the milestone at gatherings in Colorado Springs for the Rolls-Royce Owners' Club Annual Meet, the Las Vegas Concours d’Elegance, and the grand opening of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Oakville in Canada.
In Asia, Rolls-Royce hosted a standout event at Azabudai Hills in Tokyo. It showcased rare Phantoms, ranging from the Phantom II Continental to the Phantom Oribe, which Rolls-Royce designed in collaboration with Hermès for a Japanese collector. Rolls-Royce celebrated 100 Years of Phantom in Singapore through a contemporary culinary journey, and it honoured five generations of Phantom in Shanghai at a showcase for Chinese clients and friends of the marque. Across the Middle East, Rolls-Royce brought Phantom Centenary to the National Museum of Qatar and to private events in Dubai, Riyadh, Manama, and Abu Dhabi, featuring historic and modern Bespoke Phantoms such as the Phantom Drophead Coupé Zenith, the Phantom Scintilla Private Collection with an 869,500-stitch interior, and the Phantom Centenary Private Collection.
As Rolls-Royce celebrated Phantom’s legacy in 2025, it also advanced its Bespoke future. At the Home of Rolls-Royce in Goodwood, construction progressed on a landmark £300 million extension that will house advanced equipment and capabilities dedicated to Bespoke craftsmanship. Rolls-Royce designed this expansion to strengthen the marque’s creative and technical process and to make room for new ideas, materials and artisanal techniques. Rolls-Royce Phantom, as the pinnacle Rolls-Royce and its most expansive Bespoke canvas, will continue to bring these innovations to life at the grandest scale throughout the next century.
