It’s challenging to follow a legend. The Silver Shadow, the Rolls that really took the hallowed marque into the modern era, would almost necessarily overshadow (har har) its successor, no matter how well-crafted it might be. And even more so if it ended up being something of a disappointment. On a dark day in 1980, the dispiriting new Rolls was unveiled, and the world yawned.
The Silver Spirit, and its long wheelbase sister the Silver Spur, ushered in the dreaded ‘80s – at least, from a styling point of view. Because under all that rather bland linearity, the car underneath is pretty much a Silver Shadow (or rather, as we’re dealing with the LWB versions here, the Silver Wraith I), so really more of a ‘60s car. Thus for the last two decades of the Twentieth Century, the most expensive British saloon in regular production was this boring box with a shiny schnozz and a big behind.
There are a few differences with the Shadow, all pretty minor: the Spirit / Spur got an extra inch of wheelbase, three more of width and one less in height compared to their Shadow II / Wraith II predecessors. The body was a fresh design from the ground up, but only skin-deep. Said skin, by the way, was the work of by Austrian-born designer Fritz Feller. Everything under that remained pretty much as was, until they put a turbocharger on the Bentley version.
Because of course, there was a Bentley clone. Badge-engineering was never the exclusive propriety of low-brow carmakers such as British Leyland, Rootes or General Motors: Rolls had been at it since the ‘40s. So much so in fact that, by the ‘80s, the Bentley marque had practically been a Daimler-like zombie sub-brand for over a generation. The magic of the word “Turbo” would change all that in remarkably little time.
But that’s neither here nor there. We’re dealing with a Silver Spur here, not a Turbo R. This is a late model Spur, known by some as the Spur IV. R-R never used the numeral on the cars themselves, as the number 4 is considered bad luck in certain Asian countries, including Japan. But it was the fourth series of the model, which included a few noticeable external changes and generalized the fuel-injected 6.75 litre turbo V8 for all models, be they sold as Bentley or Rolls-Royce.
So for the first time since they adapted the Bentley Mark VI standard steel saloon into the Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn back in 1949, something that the company had pioneered under the Bentley marque crossed over to become a Rolls feature. This was a significant reversal of the roles the two marques had played for decades, and it took place just before they “divorced” in 1998.
Visually, Bentley increased their sportier image by doing away with the heavily chromed nasal treatment, at least on the sportier versions of the big saloon. This was never an option for the Spirit / Spur, where the massive upright Greek temple of a grille, topped as per longstanding tradition by the Spirit of Ecstasy, dominated the front end as it had since the Edwardian era.
For the fourth series, which debuted in 1995 (a full fifteen years after the Spirit / Spur came to be), the Rolls got integrated body-coloured bumpers. These had been previewed on specials and limited run cars in the years prior, but obviously it was such a revolutionary change that Rolls-Royce took the time to ease into it. The Greek temple also lost a couple inches and the Flying Lady became 20% smaller. This was the most significant facelift the car ever got in 20 years, and it came very late in its life. One major regional particularity was the North American version’s quad headlamps – our CC has the big “global standard” composites, which do look a bit better. This particular car also has clear front turn signal lenses – not a very common variation, but it suits the design pretty well.
Although turbocharged and equipped with ABS, a new 4-speed slushbox and all the trimmings, our late model Spur still has the Rolls suspension settings – made for comfort, definitely not roadholding. Some might argue that the quality of the interior is worth the price of admission. At least from this vantage point, you don’t have to look at the car, which is definitely a bonus.
As time went by, the customer base started to skew towards the more competent (and discreet) Bentley; about 40% of Crewe’s saloons between 1980 and 1999 wore a winged “B” badge, compared to about 7% of the Shadow generation. They sold pretty well, considering the semi-handmade production methods and outrageous price: just over 32,000 units made (both Bentley and Rolls-Royce in standard and long wheelbase, but excluding stretched cars). Makes these almost common, which certainly doesn’t help with their current status as the least sought-after Rolls-Royce.
That’s their reputation anyway: unloved, uncool and out of style. And they are quite disappointing when seen next to their predecessors. But personally, I’d take one of these British-made Peugeot 604s (the rear end has a little mid-‘70s PF to it, no?) over the gigantic BMW-powered atrocities that took over the range in the early 2000s any day. Crushing peasants should be done in plushness and style, but if said style is in short supply, at least it should be made with a modicum of discretion. The Silver Spur certainly blends in to the background, so it could still fit the bill.
Related posts:
Curbside Classic: Rolls Royce Silver Spirit – Delivered By The Wind, by David Skinner
Curbside Outtake: 1980’s Rolls Royce Silver Spur Mark I – She’s Seen Better Days, by Jim Brophy
Sports Car Shop Classics: 1967 Austin Mini Cooper S And 1999 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur, by PN
Curbside Classic: 1987 Bentley Mulsanne Turbo R – In Case a Rolls-Royce Is Too Common For You, by Roger Carr
Japan can be funny about foreign prestige cars and LHD. Logically, that should be RHD, but isn’t, and I’m sure it’s on purpose.
I’d not heard of this fella Feller, but it turns out to be a bit of a tale, and slightly familiar.
It seems that his father had the same problem with the Nazis as did my father’s father – disapproval of the religion on their birth certificates – and like my father, he left his land of birth in 1939 for a permanent excursion to another country (him and his dad to England, my dad and his to Oz). Fritz then became an apprentice (at 14), trapped in the dark satanic mills of Rolls Royce during the war. In 1972, when head stylist John Blatchley retired, someone noticed Fritz was still there, and in sympathy, gave him Blatchley’s job. The fact that he was an engineer deterred them not, though it might explain a bit.
All this is not to excuse the 1980 result of his endeavours, which has always resembled the kind of overweight but bland mausoleum one might find in the Protestant section of a Victorian graveyard (albeit with a nicer interior). This era of Roller manages the incongruous feat of being both noticeably awkward and yet invisible, not to mention inordinately expensive while looking like a bitsa kit car that you buy unassembled.
When one adds to their inelegance their notorious mechanical flakiness, it is hard to imagine their stocks rising any time soon.
Though if, by some dint of human unreason, they do, the buyer had best go equipped, as the panel gaps on the handbuilt masterwork visible right here are quite large enough for a starving peasant to crawl through and hold the owner to account, and I don’t mean for their lack of taste. And one can’t run them over if they’re already on board, you know.
Dr Mr B Esq, back in the late 1980s, a plucky Orstralian named Geoff Heard wished, as is the Australian wont, to make Silver Spurious luxury available to any of his countrymen and women with an HZ Kingswood or Premier to spare.
In Sweet Adelaide (sung to the tune of Sweet Caroline) he owned Creative Cars, which brought Porsche to the masses with their VW Poraga and Porerra, and Ferrari to the other masses with their Toyota Ferrino (renamed Cerino after some lovely chaps in Italy protested). But the poser Porsches and fake Ferraris were too small, too niche, and the late-80s Aussie bloke really needed family sedan with room for a barbie, and behold!, the RR Glammer was born. The degree of realism was breathtaking, right down to the panel gaps, although being a Kingy underneath meant the peasants rejoiced in its egalitarianisticalismisation.
Feller’s fellas protested, natch, as they wished not to share their hereditary title of MOTWBLC (Makers Of The World’s Blandest Large Car), but the courts heard Heard and merely ordered the Greek temple be modernised into a Woolworths refrigeration unit. Magnificent!
Great Scott, Mr McPherson, that’s the automotive equivalent of Dame Edna. Extraordinary! Never knew of this. Cannot unsee it, either…
Dear God, – or, more pleadingly, “God, dear..” – I had quite forgot these desecrations, Captain Scott! Probably through effort, I imagine.
But now you’ve loosened the jaw joints again, it is impossible not to stare, it really is. I mean, who? Why? When? How? To make this sound less like an English class, in what possible position? (And even if that last, with what failing eyesight?) My lordy me, the world, and those people in it.
Say, just quietly, a bit pssst – no no, not “pissed”* – you’ve got to admit, that last pic of the sand-colored job, it’s not entirely off, is it? Perhaps I need new glasses. Or positions.
Maybe I dislike the FritzRoller so much because, by inadvertent stance of happennage, it always did resemble the Holden Kingswood of Oz – those rear doors, just, like, wow! – and the Kingy always being a good deal to the back of my mental collection of delights automotive, it could be that I bring to the judgement A Bias.
But like anyone such, in fact, like me myself, I cannot see the bias, so I deny it.
And righteously accuse you of it.
*slang for “in”, and “ebriated”, conjoined
This one is inoffensively stately in black, with minimal adornment (for a Rolls), and I kind of like it.
The only RR I’ve ever had any firsthand exposure to was an acquaintance’s late 80’s Silver Spirit, in about 2006. I was attending a film festival in a small Pocono town with my then significant other when it was decided we’d ride to the opening dinner and screening with his friend in this thing. The car was antique white with a crimson padded roof and interior. A rather obnoxious combination in my book, since my father had once owned a ’75 Cordoba in just that scheme 30 years prior. Needless to say that the Cordoba wasn’t remembered fondly as a symbol of great taste, but I digress.
Anyway, it was a dark and stormy night. We glided up to the venue in solid, stately(?) silence, the other two feeling quite full of themselves, and I, sitting in the passenger seat (because there were only 3 of us, and I sure as hell was NOT going to feel ok making an entrance from the rear seat of this thing)_feeling utterly ridiculous. Well, we got there, my companions felt just marvelous about themselves when a small crowd turned to see who was exiting from the car, I skulked off to the bar in an attempt to dismiss myself from this minor scene.
Later in the evening when the valet brought the car around we headed to a suitably quaint country inn for dessert and a nightcap, after which we all ran through a muddy parking lot to the silent safety of the Roller. And it was dead. Not even a discreet whirr came when the key was turned in its burled dash. Ultimately a couple of good old boys who worked in the kitchen gave us a jump with their rusty Dodge Ram 4X4. My tongue bled from all the biting I inflicted on it. There’d been a perfectly adequate, quite comfortable and attractive late model Toyota Avalon in the garage next to it when we’d left this guy’s house.
I don’t know if there’s a moral to this story, I’ll leave that stuff to Aesop, but that’s my Rolls-Royce story. I wasn’t impressed. Not in the least.
The 4th iteration of the Silver Spirit/Silver Spur does not look as bad as the previous ones in that regard, but all Rolls/Bentleys from that vintage have rear fenders far too wide for the rear track – the rear wheels look lost under the body. Two reasons for that: the Silver Spirit is only a reskin of the Silver Shadow, whose goal was to make it look wider (American customers were complaining the Silver Shadow looked “too small”) – but the underpinnings remained identically “narrow”. I’ve also read about a second reason: when the body was designed, Rolls-Royce was planning on using a run flat tire and wheel system that would have filled the wheel well, but the run flats did not meet the expectations and were replaced with conventional wheels and tires at a late stage of development – too late to change the shape of the rear fenders.
In any case, of the three “modern” pre-BMW Rolls-Royces (Shadow, Spirit, Seraph), it’s the one I like the least, and the one I probably would not buy if I ever had the money to splurge on such a car.
I like it. Probably precisely because the wrapper is quite plain. The outside is just there to protect the inhabitants from the weather. And the peasantry of course. You are correct that it’s far better than what came after which primarily seemed to add a lot of vulgarity.
It puts me in mind of envisioning it rushing up the M1 from London to points North during a somewhat gloomy late fall morning, in the rain with spray billowing out the wheelwells along the body and off the back at a steady 15 over the limit, lights on, and the occupants properly dressed. There’s probably a real newspaper in there as well.
I’d never own one though.
It has a nice coating of road grime and the wheels are well coated in brake dust somebody enjoys driving it more than washing it, a real daily driven car.
I really like this generation, preferably as a Bentley. Part of the (snob) appeal for me is that they were really so bland, anonymous, otherwise unadorned and almost invisible in a sea of its sedan peers during that period.
Oftentimes on the expressways around Chicago one of these would be up ahead of you in traffic and you wouldn’t recognize it at first. Then you notice the giant club chair seat backs crowding up into the back window.
May be I’m an outlier (again) but the current Rolls-Royce Phantom and Ghost are surely much more tasteful and elegant, if not subtle, than a swanky or customised S class, Bentley or 7 Series? And to me the best super luxury cars you can get.
This, however, is a big car with a very nicely made but old fashioned interior.
I’m with you, I don’t consider more fawned over classic Rollers subtle , they have a presence to their look and it isn’t subtle to me eye either, the silver shadow even had it. Subdued styling and a plushy interior can be found in many many European Luxury cars, but none have the presence of a true Roller, and I think the current designs do a remarkably good job. They might be over the top but name a single car produced today that doesn’t have an Audi or VW badge that isn’t? A current Rolls looks like a Rolls, the Silver Spur looks like a Delta 88 brougham with a fancy grille. A W126 has more snob appeal
No, Sir Rog, you’re not an outliar. Well, I agree with your truth, anyway.
Oh! “Outlier”! Sorry about that.
Same result, anyway. Well, mostly. Personally, there’s something about the Phantom that is very sand n’ oil bling, and all a bit much, but the Ghost tones the money-shouting back enough that it manages just a dash of the touch of sniffiness which alone raises it above the longer Benzes or Beems and suchlike It just works (something not always sayable about British upper crusties, though, as history seems now to have it, not always sayable about the products of B or M or W either, but I digress). This much spent cash should at least LOOK a bit uppity, even if its underbits really aren’t.
Can’t agree with you on this Spur, ofcourse, but that still doesn’t make you a lier whether out or in, I say.
It must have been extremely hard to design a Rolls-Royce for the eighties, something like like trying to find your way through thick fog.
There would have been so many considerations, so often pulling in opposite directions. The Shadow package seemed about right, but that had been in production so long; something more than just a refresh was called for. Fuel prices would probably not be an issue for your (small) target market, but you couldn’t be sure of that. You wouldn’t want to appear too ostentatious, not the way society was going (in most places). But at the same time you had to be distinctive, even if only to those in the know. The stylistic tide seemed to be turning toward squarishness, but you don’t want to follow that tide too far; that way generica lies. Then there’s this matter of a long production run to consider, without appearing obsolete.
You would need the foresight of Nostradamus, and the talent of Michelangelo.
And thick must that fog have been, Mr W, as the result might well suggest they had the foresight of Tiresias and the talent of Mike, angle-grinder.
Might I suggest that that fog consisted almost entirely of hot air and vapourous cash, the air being the late dregs of a not-really-justified history of alleged superiority, and the cash being more vapour than anything else?
Truth is, old Rolls had no money, and only a vanishing snobbery upon which to trade. So they couldn’t get someone – probably from Italy – to execute the magic you rightly identify as necessary, and settled for a bit of a re-skin. A re-do supervised by a charming, exuberant…..engineer.
Looks pretty good to me as did the Shadow before it.
This car makes the current model resemble a German #PanzerWagen.
A handsome car. I wonder who buys an old Rolls? I couldn’t stretch my mind past a Jag.