Throughout 2025, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has celebrated the centenary of its pinnacle product and the most famous nameplate in luxury history: Phantom. These celebrations focused on the people, places and events that shaped Phantom’s incredible story, and how this extraordinary motor car has both reflected and influenced the world around it.
Designed by Sir Henry Royce, the original ‘new’ Phantom made its debut in 1925. Over the next 100 years and throughout eight generations, Phantom has always been the grandest, most impressive and effortlessly refined motor car built by the marque: a century of unassailable luxury and engineering excellence.
The centenary year has featured appearances by all eight generations of Phantom at celebratory events across the globe, culminating in the unveiling of the Phantom Centenary Private Collection, Rolls-Royce’s own Bespoke tribute to its most storied model.
Clients around the world also chose to take delivery of their Bespoke Phantoms in 2025 – in many cases beginning the journey years in advance, in anticipation of the anniversary – ensuring their motor cars would not only become part of their personal legacy, but also take a once-in-a-lifetime place in the ongoing story of this remarkable nameplate. To mark this milestone, every Rolls-Royce Phantom hand-crafted at the Home of Rolls-Royce this year was completed with a special centenary chassis plaque.
Rolls-Royce takes this opportunity to reflect on Phantom’s legacy, revisiting the stories and moments shared among clients, the media, and the world throughout this unforgettable centenary year.
PHANTOM CENTENARY PRIVATE COLLECTION: A BESPOKE TRIBUTE
Rolls-Royce honoured 100 years of the Phantom nameplate with the Phantom Centenary Private Collection. Limited to just 25 examples, this Private Collection combines traditional and highly innovative craft techniques to explore a century of stories: pivotal figures, notable clients, significant models, journeys, places and moments that defined Phantom’s first 100 years.
Its iridescent two-tone exterior, finished in Super Champagne Crystal over Arctic White and Black – crowned with a solid gold Spirit of Ecstasy – recalls the elegance of Phantom’s early Hollywood era. Inside, exquisitely crafted Bespoke features tell the story of Phantom’s legend. The Anthology Gallery is composed of sculpted words selected from 100 years of media acclaim. Rear seats are finished in high-resolution printed and embroidered fabric, meticulously developed with a couture atelier over a year.
The Starlight Headliner captures historic moments and references in 440,000 stitches. The sculptural doors feature the marque’s most intricate woodwork to date, combining 3D marquetry, 3D ink layering and 24-carat gold leafing. The result is the most complex and technologically ambitious Private Collection to date – a defining statement, 100 years in the making.
“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.”
– Chris Brownridge, CEO, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars
CELEBRATING PHANTOM’S PLACE IN MUSIC BY BRINGING A LEGEND TO LIFE
In 2025, Rolls-Royce celebrated the legendary figures in music who chose Phantom, both 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 artists helped shape, and were drawn to, Phantom’s magnetic presence.
Perhaps the most memorable tale from Phantom’s musical mythology is Keith Moon’s infamous 21st birthday party, when The Who’s drummer reportedly drove his Rolls-Royce into a swimming pool. Though witnesses have only a hazy recollection of what really happened, a Rolls-Royce submerged in a pool became the ultimate symbol of rock ‘n’ roll indulgence.
REFLECTING ON PHANTOM’S CONNECTION TO A CENTURY OF ART
As part of the centenary celebrations, Rolls-Royce reflected on Phantom’s long-standing connection to the art world. In one of the most surreal arrivals in history, Salvador Dalí once filled a friend’s Phantom with 500kg of cauliflowers, then flung open the door upon arrival at the Sorbonne in Paris, sending the brassicas cascading to the ground. This moment – which itself will celebrate its 70th anniversary on December 26, 2025 – was commemorated by the marque, along with reflections of other Phantom owners who led the creative conversation, including Andy Warhol, who was so compelled by Phantom that he acquired a 1937 model on the spot after seeing it parked outside a Zurich antiques shop in 1972.
COMMISSIONS INSPIRED BY AN UNFORGETTABLE LEGACY
Aware of the historical significance of 2025, clients around the world placed Bespoke commissions for delivery in Phantom’s centenary year — in many cases beginning that journey years in advance. These Phantoms stand among the most ambitious ever created by the marque’s Bespoke Collective and resident designers in the Private Offices of Shanghai, Dubai, Seoul, New York, and the original at the Home of Rolls-Royce in Goodwood, West Sussex.
PHANTOM’S BESPOKE FUTURE
In a year defined by Phantom’s legacy, Rolls-Royce also looked to its future. At the Home of Rolls-Royce in Goodwood, construction progressed on a landmark £300 million extension to house advanced equipment and capabilities dedicated to Bespoke. This expansion enhances every element of the marque’s creative and technical process, creating space for bold new ideas, materials and artisanal techniques. Phantom, as the marque’s pinnacle product and most expansive canvas, hopes to continue to be where these innovations are brought to life on the grandest scale, today and into its next 100 years.