The 1980 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow profiled in yesterday’s CC represented the last of the line for this generation of uber-upscale sedans. What better way to follow it up than with a look at the first of the breed? In researching that article, I relied heavily on a book off my shelf titled, fittingly enough, Rolls-Royce. It’s a compilation of Rolls-Royce articles taken from Autocar magazine from 1904 to 1978. Yes, that British magazine was around in 1904. In fact, looking it up reveals it goes back to 1895 and it’s still going today. Impressive.
How this book printed in Great Britain in the late 70’s came to be sold by Half-Price Books in Texas in 2014, for a very reasonable price, I don’t know, but it’s a wealth of information on these fine automobiles and too good not to go home with me. If you are a subscriber to that magazine, which I’m not, they do have archived articles available. However, I couldn’t find much on the general internet and none of the ones in the book. So, I figured I’ll provide the World Wide Web with two article scans that should be of particular interest to fans of the Silver Shadow.
The first is a very deep dive on the features of the Shadow upon its introduction in late 1965. It’s nine pages and chock full of technical drawings and photos. The other is their first Road Test done in 1967. Between the two, it’s pretty much everything anyone would want to know, and probably more, about the early Silver Shadow.
The next nine photos are the October 1965 article. Commentary resumes after the article.
The above two pages are combined for the intended effect. Sorry, my scans didn’t line up perfectly. I also include both the individual pages below because you can see the detail better that way.
If any layman was left wanting for more detail about the new Rolls-Royce, there’s probably something wrong with him. The drawings are fantastic, especially the large cut-away of the whole car with exploded drivetrain and suspension, which is worth the price of admission by itself.
Next is Autocar’s first Road Test of the Silver Shadow, which they couldn’t get their hands on until the March 1967 issue. Presumably, few readers would be in the financial position of actually buying a new Rolls-Royce, but as the flagship of the British auto industry, it surely was of keen interest to many English car enthusiasts.
The article is five pages. Commentary resumes afterward.
These articles together give one a very detailed picture of the Silver Shadow. Note the prices listed as £5,425, plus a tax of £1,244 for a grand total of £6,669. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about £138k in 2022. Tax is 23%. Ouch! I only found one reference for the Shadow’s U.S. price in 1966, which says it was $19,500 (over 3x the price of a Cadillac in the U.S.). That would adjust to $175k. Consider that a 2022 Ghost (RR’s “entry level” sedan) would set you back at least $332k.
For the road test, the editors spent several weeks with the car, which strikes me as a luxurious amount of time for car writers. They were favorably impressed, though not without criticism. The steering was the main point of criticism and is a common theme in reviews of Silver Shadows until they got new rack and pinion steering in 1977. The editor speculates that the car was designed with an eye towards the American market, based on the low-end power preference, emphasis on straight-line performance and soft ride.
The spec and testing result pages are very detailed, much more than I’m used to in modern magazines. Check out the detailed dashboard call out illustration!
Also notable in the specs was competitor comparison charts. Apparently the editors thought the Rolls-Royce competed best (in the U.K.) with the Cadillac Fleetwood and Buick Riviera, along with the Mercedes 600SE and Daimler Majestic Major (???). It’s news to me that the Riviera was even available in England. The prices are interesting. The Mercedes 600 is significantly more expensive than the Rolls, about the same difference as the Rolls is from the Riviera in the other direction. The Cadillac is less expensive than the Rolls, but not by nearly as much as the difference between the Rolls and the Merc. The Caddy is much more expensive in England than it was in the U.S. (as is the Riviera). That is probably due to currency exchange rates, as well as a mark up for them being so exotic there.
Surprising no one, the Americans got the worst gas mileage. The Cadillac was the slowest, but not a lot slower than the Rolls. The Rolls, Daimler and Mercedes were all within a second or so of each other in 0-60 and 1/4 mile. Anyone bold enough to drive a Riviera in England in 1967 could rest easy that his car was faster than any other oversized luxury liner on the narrow roads. Jaguar was not included in the comparison, but I suspect it would outperform these cars as would some smaller Mercedes.
As an amateur car writer, I’m impressed by these English writers’ skill. They really know their way around the language. I know, shocker, right?! It’s not just vocabulary, but precision and clarity in conveying a lot of detailed information. Modern car magazine writers tend to write with more opinion, if not outright snark, which is not necessarily bad. These writers in the 60’s were more low-key and seemed to just let the facts speak for themselves. The articles could perhaps be accused of being a bit dry, still, the writers’ ability to turn a phrase, choose the right word, and deftly and efficiently express a thought was admirable and kept my interest throughout.
related reading:
Vintage R&T Road Test: 1976 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow LWB Saloon – A House or a RR?
Would love to read the pages, but it won’t let me enlarge them.
They’re not linked to the media files. Been there, done that 😀
Fixed. Sorry!
Daimler was owned by Jaguar starting in 1960, and in the ensuing years, Daimlers became more and more just a Jaguar trim level. Most people assume they are looking at a Jaguar when they see a Daimler. The Majestic Major I believe predates all of that for the most part, but Daimler would probably be the most competitive purchase vs a Rolls at least in the UK, a Jaguar would be a step down. The MB 600 is a valid comparison, the Cadillac maybe, the Riviera, well, I like it but it was probably in the press fleet at the time, so got included, I can’t imagine cross shopping the two. Or the Riviera with any of the others for that matter.
I beg to differ. Rich folks bought what was exclusive and/or tasteful. The Riviera was both at the time. It simply appealed to a segment of that market that went in for something a bit less stuffy than a four door.
I’m actually not a big fan of the term “cross shopping”. It implies that folks are way more rational than I happen to think they are, by making a list of cars in their price category and then comparing them for their various features.
Cars like the Riviera just clicked with certain folks. I can imagine a well-to-do Brit seeing one at the Earls Court Show and deciding he just had to have one, period. American cars still had lots of cred and prestige at the time, and the Riviera was a stunner. And of course its styling was very much influenced by the Hooper Rolls Royces back in the 30s and 40s, so that element only added to its appeal.
It was the swinging 60s in London at the time, and a well-to-do upper class younger guy would undoubtedly make a bigger splash on Carnaby Street in a Riviera than a Daimler Majestic. I feel confident that no one ever “cross shopped” a Daimler Majestic and a Riviera. Different strokes for different rich folks.
I often struck the same pose as this guy when admiring my first generation Riviera.
Never felt the desire for a MoreDoor RR.
I think we are looking at it slightly differently. I was looking at it more in the vein of someone who decided they wanted a ritzy or moneyed sedan and looked at what was there and compared it to what was rightly or wrongly considered the top of the crop, the Rolls, as the test review kind of did.
Sure, some people likely did buy a Riviera or Toronado or maybe even a BMW 3.0 CSL a few years later but in comparing the cars and this grouping that Riv is surely the outlier, this was sort of a comparison test or that’s how I took it to be. Kind of like that small import wagon thing we ran the other day, some people probably looked at a 510 wagon, an Opel Wagon, and a 404 wagon and then bought a Camaro. A fine choice but not really a good fit to include in the “test”.
Two points point to remember are that the Rolls appealed to the “old money” community, who would often not consider anything other than a prestige British car – Rolls, maybe Bentley if they had a bit of swagger, an Alvis perhaps or maybe even a Bristol (though always a left field chocie). Daimler was a very conservative choice for someone who considered a Jaguar too flash, or even worse “new money”, and cars like the Majestic Major were gone or going by the time the Shadow arrived. By 1968, Daimlers were badge engineered XJ6 and XJ12 variants; Alvis and Armstrong-Siddeley had also gone.
Also note that the Rolls often (maybe more now than then, possibly) competes not with other cars but with a new yacht lease or a private aircraft. The Shadow would very rarely be the only or daily car, but the one either kept at one house or the other, or used for moving between the city and country home for example.
I cannot remember ever seeing a Buick Riviera or Cadillac of that era outside a car show or magazine; likewise the Mercedes 600 which was surely designed for the chauffeured VIPs etc.
I’d be curious to know quite which permutation of the Hydra-Matic 4 speed was still being built by Rolls.
I was wondering the same thing, and would suspect that they were still using the 1st generation (pre-1956 at GM) due to the article noting the lack of a “Park” position.
Also, it has been a long time since I had that 63 Cadillac, but I am pretty sure I remember that the unit would kick down from 4th to 3rd in the 2nd gen (commonly called Jetaway) that ran from 1956-63 (and maybe 64 in Pontiac Bonnevilles).
If I’m right, it is kind of interesting that Rolls Royce did not move to a newer design by 1965. The old HM had been the best automatic in the world in the early 50s, but was not so by the time the Shadow came out.
The answer is simple: RR bought the rights to build the original HM, and they could not afford to make the major changes that GM had done. They did make some minor refinements, but it had to be mostly within the limits of the tooling they had invested in.
It’s important to note that the Silver Shadow already used the purchased THM-400 in all LHD Silver Shadows starting in 1966, meaning the US primarily, as the old HM was going to feel to out of date for American drivers. RHD Silver Shadows switched to the THM-400 in 1970. The old HM had run its course.
I read that RR wanted to improve the transmission . They opened on up to find the fluid channels were to rough cast for their standards so they polished them . The trans did nt shift so well as before..
Yep, the THM-400 was great . I had one in my 83 Rover SD1..
Yeah, I’ve read that a few dozen times, too—I’d love to see some sturdy support for it; until then, it smells to me like a campfire story.
As someone who has rebuilt many automatic transmissions, I too, have to go with the campfire story theory…
The version of the story I’ve heard is that Rolls-Royce asked for tighter tolerances than the contemporary GM norm — which were rather loose by European standards — and this had the side effect of making the transmission more susceptible to internal dirt and debris.
How true that was I don’t claim to know, but it is more plausible, and the tradeoff between precision and fault tolerance is not unknown in the realm of complex machinery. (For what it’s worth, the Rolls-Royce service manual for the Turbo Hydra-Matic is very emphatic about the perils of getting dirt in the transmission’s innards, but it’s not like American service manuals DON’T do that.)
Yup, that sounds a whole lot more realistic. Brings to mind the difference between a Hasselblad (half a grain of sand throws the whole thing out of whack) and a Pentax (set the self timer, kick a field goal with it, then go retrieve it and carry on taking pics).
Okay, I have determined the likely origin of that story, which has gotten a bit garbled.
The issue, which involved the four-speed Hydra-Matic, not TH400, was not related to fluid channels, but to the exterior finish of the brake drum of the rear planetary gearset. On early Hydra-Matic transmissions, the rear gearset is placed in reduction by using a contracting band brake to hold the rear drum, which locks the rear ring gear so it acts as a reaction member.
After Rolls-Royce began manufacturing Hydra-Matic, they realized they were finishing the drum too smoothly, which was causing erratic shifting when the rear band needed to engage (chiefly on 3–2 downshifts). From the description, I assume the too-smooth surface was allowing a bit of slippage when the band first contacted the drum surface (the band skittering a bit over the drum before getting a good bite on it). The shift quality of an old Hydra-Matic depends in large part on correct engagement/disengagement timing for the bands and clutches; if engagement is too early or too late, or takes more or less time than it’s supposed to, the shift may still complete as it’s supposed to, but you’ll get a lurch or a jerk.
The transmission in these cars was essentially the 1952-vintage Dual-Range Hydra-Matic, with some unique revisions (as described in the text). Unlike the later Jetaway four-speed Hydra-Matic, it still had a single fluid coupling. (1956 to 1964 four-speed units had a second, smaller coupling that replaced the front clutch pack.)
I hadn’t realized previously that Rolls-Royce had adopted an aluminum case and had added an overrunning sprag clutch as a brake for the rear gearset. (GM dual-coupling Hydra-Matic units have sprag clutches for both front and rear gearsets.) So, the late sixties version is sort of a hybrid in some respects.
(Er, 1956 to 1964 GM passenger car four-speed units had a second fluid coupling. Rolls-Royce didn’t, so far as I know, and trucks retained the single-coupling Dual-Range Hydra-Matic.)
Was this the RR model that was compared to the new 1965 Ford “Quieter than a Rolls-Royce” LTD?
I don’t think so. The Silver Shadow was released in late 1965, but production didn’t start in earnest until early 1966. The old Silver Cloud would have been the model Ford had access to prior to that ad campaign.
Having ridden in a Silver Cloud on my wedding day I was surprised how much noise there was and don’t doubt that a new 1965 Ford was quieter. I wonder if that campaign stopped post ’66, it’s easy to compare a then-modern car to one engineered decades ago, even if produced the same year. That ’65 era Ford probably sounded like a carnival ride compared to a 1981 Silver Spur if the Ford was still being built that year.
Funny enough I rode in the back of a 69 Shadow,pre A/C model ,as a best man. I thought the Same.Less noise in my old Rover SD1. Put it down to a decade of progress. RR were all about mystic. Do not meet your heros The Jag XJ 12 would have been The Best Car in the World if it had better build quality and if owners did not share the same service counter as Marina owners…
I’m pretty sure CAR magazine proclaimed it “The Best Car In The World” at least once… 🙂
Aah, this brings back memories! Not of any Silver Shadow I’ve experienced (there have been none), but of the three year subscription to Autocar which my aunt got me for Christmas, 1967 when I was just 11 years old. Once a week, about a month after the publication date, a sometimes tattered copy would show up in the mailbox and I’d enter a parallel universe where the new exciting Ford for 1968 was an Escort, not a Torino, which got as detailed coverage, with detailed specs and photo’s and exploded drawings. A few years later, it was the Mk3 Cortina, not the Pinto, which got all the press. As I recall, one of the last issues I got featured the new Range Rover. I don’t recall what I did with those 150-odd magazines; I kept them for years but they probably got thrown out along with my decades of Road & Track and other American magazines. Thanks for taking the time to scan all those pages and writing this up.
My pleasure! Glad it could bring back some good memories. I was really impressed by the drawings. I assume some of them came from Rolls-royce, but the big cut away says Autocar. No computer assistance. Some things are better analog.
Motor Trend used to feature a lot of those by David Kimble. They were first rate.
That £6669 is now around £90000. Tax on new cars is 20% for private owners, businesses can recover it. That bought you a very decent family house in 1966; it won’t now.
The Ghost starts at £230k, the Bentley Flying Spur, perhaps closer to the Shadow at £168k.
Those numbers don’t buy big houses either.
£90000 is the starting price for a new Range Rover, more or less.
Autocar and Motor (now gone, absorbed in Autocar 20+ years ago) were always good on hand drawn cutaways drawings in new car features, which were better than they are now IMHO. Flight International still does them – well worth looking out for.
American cars ” clIcked ” with those that wanted some thing different to a Jag. I worked with a chap who drove a 61 T- Bird with the Tri – power ,3 card set up in the 80s On the passenger door jam say a North London american car dealer. It was not Bristol Street Motors nor Leadham and Hartman the two leading importers of the day. Fifty years ago Mustang Mach 1 s were not uncommon thanks to James Bond. ..
You mean Lendrum & Hartman, not Leadham.
” The Ghost starts at £ 230 k “. The price of an average house in the UK today. So nothings changed.
Never understood why Motor lasted so long. Thumbing through the pages at WH Smith I found them to be the same!.
Never heard of a Majestic Major, but have now added it to my dream garage list. Seems like a serious bargain,
“As an amateur car writer, I’m impressed by these English writers’ skill. They really know their way around the language. I know, shocker, right?! It’s not just vocabulary, but precision and clarity in conveying a lot of detailed information. ”
My university English professor likely would give this article a D- for style. I appreciate a sophisticated , detailed report but this writer has simply read too many New Yorker Magazine articles. Many sentences are written in the passive voice , interrupted by far too many comma, and far too lengthy. Some sentences are simply fragments and poorly constructed. It’s annoying and not worthy of reverence, in my opinion. Indeed, I developed an uneasy feeling reading it. The painful memories of my professor hammering the lessons of “The Elements of Style” into my youthful mind came back to haunt me.
I think the distinction Jon is making is that Autocar had technical editors who actually understood the technology, which wasn’t (and isn’t) necessarily the case with other buff books. It’s not that it’s stylistically scintillating (certainly not compared to the snarkiness of CAR, for instance), but it is more than usually erudite for this sort of thing.
Fun fact: Autocar‘s previous technical editor, Harry Mundy (who had departed by the time the first of these articles was written), was a former Coventry-Climax engineer who actually designed the DOHC Ford-Lotus engine in 1961!
The fastest accelerating four door sedan available in the UK in that era wasnt even mentioned I notice, I wonder why? Could it be an ordinary six cylinder sedan by Vauxhall GM-UK wasnt worthy in that company.
The magazine extracts reminded me of the long school holidays of the 1960s.
My Grandad used to get Autocar every week in the 1960s. When my brother and I were sent to stay as small boys I would disappear into the attic and sit reading the stack of Autocar magazines, or rather looking through them. I didn’t understand most of it but the cutaway drawings especially fascinated me. I remember similar articles with cutaways of the latest front wheel drive BMC and the Rover 2000.
Autocar have now made a lot of their archive available on line, although I think you have to subscribe to access it.
Now I wish I had been down in the garage with Grandad when he was on his summer holiday from teaching woodwork. In the early 1960s he would have been taking the body panels off his Morgan and repairing the ash frame. In the late 1960s he would have been servicing his Porsche Super 90 and using a stethoscope to balance the carburettors. They would have been useful skills to acquire.
“he would have been servicing his Porsche Super 90 and using a stethoscope to balance the carburettors”
That is a trick I would love to see and learn!