Yesterday’s piece on the Camargue garnered a lot of query around a prototype Rolls-Royce it featured. It was hardly familiar to me as well, so I did a bit of digging. This is the SX, an in-house proposal for a downsized sedan prepared in the early 1980s.
In 1980, the SZ cars were released to market as the Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit and Bentley Mulsanne. They were more massive and indelicate than their predecessors, but suited the times and were well received by the company’s clientele.
But the company now sat in the midst of a new type of economy; fuel prices and inflation.
A smaller model had been on and off the cards since the war. Blatchley’s Bentley Junior drew much from Evernden’s pre-war French-market Corniche in the face. In the early 1960s, desperation set in and a number of projects were commenced of cars based on BMC products. Thankfully, none were proceeded with and only the Vanden Plas 4 litre slipped through.
With a reduced-dimension package drawn up for project SX, Rolls-Royce consulted with stylists Tom Karen and Giorgetto Giugiaro in 1981.
Tom Karen was head at Ogle. They had designed the Reliant Scimitar in all its guises including the original Daimler SX250 version. Their Triplex estate so pleased Prince Phillip, he acquired it for himself.
I’m not sure what Karen presented to Rolls-Royce. These two renderings are from two different sources, both of which say they came from the mid 1970s. But they look more 1980s to me, and could well be his work for the SX.
Nor can I find the Giugiaro proposal. But the brief came in just after his Lancia-based Medusa. This car was a bit of a watershed for him in that it set a new curvature language for him after a lengthy spell in origami.
He had submitted work to Jaguar in the mid 1970s for their XJ replacement. The one on left more conventional, the one on the right a sneakily regrilled Maserati Medici II. The prestige Medici influenced the greenhouse of the Medusa, but I doubt his SX for Rolls-Royce had a fastback.
Graham Hull, stylist at Rolls-Royce, described Giugiaro’s proposal as ‘Lancia meets enlarged Volvo 340’. Sounds like he was looking at the one on the left.
The Giugiaro version was built by Rolls-Royce in quarter-scale. It was met with silence from the board.
An in-house version emerged, styled by Graham Hull. This one was taken to full-size and shown at the sports field against the European competition.
Seeing it lifesize brought a reality check.
The only dimension I have is length; SX – 16.16’; SZ – 17.3’. With the SZ being 6.2′ (74.4″) wide, I estimate the SZ here to be about 5.6′ (67″) across.
The board asked for 6 extra inches of length, 4 of cabin interior and only 1 extra inch of width. It never happened. The whole project withered in the face of the SZ’s success.
I couldn’t find any profile shots but the shape looks square-rigged all over.
The rear is a great disappointment.
I think the front nailed it, though.
The angle I used gives it some forward cant in the face-plane which helps. The detail may be missing, but the arrangement of the shapes comes straight from the green Frua Phantom.
And when you stretch the SX slightly, it looks even nicer.
In 1982 Graham Hull asked his boss Fritz Feller whether he might be able to borrow his car. Feller was driving an Audi 100 CD which the company had bought for appraisal. Hull put a plywood mock-up of a Rolls-Royce grille on it and stuck it in a wind tunnel.
It achieved a Cd.32 against the Audi’s original Cd.30. hehehe
…
This account is drawn from the book
Inside the Rolls-Royce & Bentley Styling Department 1971 to 2001
by Graham Hull
…
Seeing additional angles of the full-size prototype only deepens my impression of the Chrysler E-Class.
Ahh, it was you. 🙂 Sorry, I did not go back to look.
I agree (with you and JPC), and say to Chrysler, “Mission Accomplished”-
Given the era, I’m sure the E-Class stylists targeted “traditional luxury car” design cues, and any comparison to a Rolls Royce would please Lee Iacocca.
You are on the right track but take a look at pictures of the 1990 Chrysler Imperial.
I agree with whoever yesterday said the SX looks like an 89 Chrysler New Yorker.
I think that a smaller, less expensive RR would have been a mistake. Rolls Royce was a car more about high cost, craftsmanship and the prestige they offer to the owner. It was never intended to be a “driver’s car”. Was there room above the Jaguar for a really high end British saloon? I am not sure that there was. Especially not one that looked like a Chrysler on the K platform.
I thought that too:
That was the first thing that went through my head when I saw that picture yesterday… A Rolls Royce on the K-Car platform?
It was weird enough when Lido called the first upper end one a LeBaron, and then to go and use the name Imperial for it…
The Chrysler version is better looking IMO.
We owned a 1989 New Yorker a few years ago, and that was my first thought. Looking at the front, it looks EXACTLY like that car. The rest of the car doesn’t scream “Rolls Royce” to me, but the front of it…. definitely a New Yorker. Not quite the image I’d recommend for them
Thanks for the clarification. I remember reading about RR mulling a smaller, cheaper car, but it’s a good thing they didn’t pursue it.
I never cared much for the styling of the 1981-1998 Rolls/Bentley (never knew it was called the SZ). It looked somewhat fat and bland compared to its neatly-tailored Silver Shadow predecessor. I remember seeing pictures of on-road prototypes in CAR magazine as early as 1975. The car calls to mind a ’67 Chevelle suffering from extreme bloat. The messy US-market quad headlight treatment was no help.
I find it a little ironic to see that Rolls Royce once found itself in the same trap in which Mini finds itself today.
To wit: You can’t make a bigger Mini, and you can’t make a cheaper Rolls Royce.
Edit: my boss who just came over to see why I’m not working said, “Now do the one about the hundred-thousand-dollar Volkswagen.
I have to go now.
Good suggestion for a CC from your boss. Hundred-thousand-dollar Volkswagen – wasn’t that the Phaeton?
Making a smaller Rolls might have been seen as an attempt to gain market share. It sure has worked for Mercedes. Even if it was more expensive then the highest priced Benz it probably would have found some buyers. This might have been seen as a way to keep the company viable. Instead the company was split up and sold to BMW and Volkswagen.
And somewhere Iacocca is saying “you know, a continental kit, some opera lamps, and a padded roof would really bring this car to another level.”
Smart move not to build a K car with a special hood and RR grille.
To me the SX mock up looks like a 1980 Thunderbird
+1
The “Jaguar proposal” registered XLV 14H looks a lot like the 1981 Maserati Quattroporte, and I concur, the car does look like a K-car from the front, certainly not distinctive enough to be a Rolls. But I guess it was ahead of its time since Rolls Royce and Bentley do produce slightly smaller cars now.
Wow. An RR Cimmaron. Coulda been a Deadly Sin.
A few tweaks on that red artist rendering (remove the hood bulge leading into the grille, a slight chop of the roof and higher angles on the windows) and you have the 1992 Seville.
I thought that too.
As a former 1995 Seville owner, I agree. I feel like the Seville’s design was born of the Quattroporte III, so I’ll throw that one into the mix as an influence. The taillights are very similar, too.
BTW, I’d comment here more often if it didn’t cut my comment 2/3 of the time without allowing me to copy my text. That’s really frustrating.
Good call. Seeing this 92 model makes me more convinced the Karen drawings were for SX. Bumper treatment especially.
Couldn’t agree less. And perhaps also, more. Let me explain.
Yes, it IS not too many pen strokes away from the anonymously handsome Seville, but that’s just the point – those strokes are missing.
It’s yet another variation of that seminal observation in the famous Robert Frost line from The Road Not Taken: “Two paths diverged in a wood, and I – /I took the one less travelled by,/And that has made all the difference.”
(Yes, I did have to look that up for exactitude).
That red car profile, if made just like that (in, say, 1985) and if the other views of it matched it for elegance, would not only be a lovely looking device but arguably a better looker than what RR is making right now.
Is it known whether the Rolls-Royce SX Proposal was to carry over an existing engine or like the later BMW-derived 1994 Bentley Java V8 prototype use a different engine altogether?
The book has this;
‘John Cook’s people in the Design Office (Engineering) drew package layouts aimed at achieving projected weight and mileage targets, which involved reducing overall dimensions of various engines, including a favoured straight-six.’
It is difficult to see how a lower-displacement version of the L-Series V8 could have been used even with turbocharging being used to make up for the shortfall in power, while the N-Series V8 project engine did not begin until the mid/late-1980s.
Would have loved to have seen more specifics as to what engines the company was looking at, especially as apparently engineer George Ray was currently said to be writing the definitive book on all Rolls-Royce engines, though not sure what the current status is since first hearing about it over 2 years back.
I’m not sure how deeply they went into the engine. This book focuses on Hull’s time in styling. The SX was Rolls’ first ever full-size clay, so I think this was more an opportunity for styling than for re-engineering the full package.
Interesting to note other images of the SX have it being compared to the BMW 5-Series, while the later 1994 Java concept was itself based on the 5-Series.
Perhaps the SX mock-up was itself based on the 5-Series given the approximate dimensions.
So they went through all the trouble of making a completely new car, and it just ends up being the Silver Spirit, albeit without the spirit and very little silver. Good thing they stopped that train of thought before it reached the station.
The earlier protos from the ’60s were also pretty bad. That low-nosed BMC coupé looks a bit Zagato. That one should have been called “SZ”…
That BMC coupé, had it gone into production, would have featured the 4-litre RR engine used in the VdP saloon. We can be thankful it never came to pass.
https://www.aronline.co.uk/concepts/concepts-and-prototypes/ado30-sports-car-project/
That little coupe was based on an Austin Healey 3000 proposal by Pio Manzu, Michael Conrad & Henner Werner when students. It was an entry for some sort of competition which had Pininfarina involved, but they seem to claim credit for it now. The roofline somehow made its way to the MGB GT.
I´ve heard about that competition. A US stylist called Robert Cumberford took part there, too. He achieved 6th place with drawings which later become the Maserati Mistral. Pininfarina must have granted Petro Frua acces. Well thats what Mr. Cumberford says.
I specifically focussed in on the little sportster Don put there above, rather fancying it, perhaps minus the unlikely Bentley grille. It’s pretty cool.
Mind you, having looked at the aronline link you’ve given, I’ll abandon that thought. The other versions there are unfortunate (if “unfortunate” has the meaning given by, say, a chiropractor, for the Hunchback of Notre Dame’s back).
The Rolls-Royce Silver Cimarron.
The SZ, which I too didn’t know had such a plebian in-house identification, would’ve been a top seller if the scale were reduced and the badge and grille removed and it was sold instead badged as the Ford Local Council. What a dull un-stately pile it was, and every extra headlight or blackout and spoiler added to get the geriatric past the bouncers into the newest club looked more like a pig in lippy than the last.
As for the SX, I can quite understand the urge of someone in RR’s management to make a car that might sell on something other than mouldy nostalgia. But I’m also glad that this unimaginative box called SX was ignored, because SX-y it was not. Now, I’m sure virility isn’t much of a marketing value for the RR market, but my lord, surely at least they’re selling a re-packaged version of it – huge wealth. And this little K-car didn’t tell the world out there anything to the world of the buyer’s bank accounts, even if RR had made the price silly.
Great stuff again, Mr A.
Even if, yet again, you insist on speaking in approving Delphic utterances about those Frua Rollers in what seems to be a fierce attempt to justify the monstrosity of their existence.
IMO: The newest RR is awkwardly styled and is “Butt Ugly” when compared to the graceful, enduring body from the 1980;s.
Just my $0.02, but a smaller Rolls, perhaps with a different bit of badging ala Ferrari and the original Dino….or BMW and the Mini, could have worked.
For starters, they could have made sure that the car wasn’t necessarily cheaper, but more fuel efficient and easier to maintain.