Where to start when presented with a six-metre-long, probably near-£5 million limousine inspired by a Bond villain planning to irradiate Fort Knox, making the gold therein untradeable, so driving up the price of his stash of the precious metal, which he smuggled disguised as a Rolls-Royce.
Perhaps right at the front of this one-off Rolls-Royce Phantom.
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If it wasn’t pointed out, you’d probably be so absorbed by the rest of the car that you’d miss a subtle detail that sums up and points to the wider examples of detail creativity and fun that’s gone into a car commemorating the 1964 Bond movie Goldfinger.
At second glance you may think over-enthusiastic polishing had skimmed gold plating off its Spirit of Ecstasy figurine to reveal silver beneath. But it’s the other way round, or made to appear so: 18-carat gold seems to be peeping out from under the silver. Ingenious: you can’t silver-plate gold.
It’s a clever nod towards Auric Goldfinger’s movie method of smuggling gold from England to his Swiss Alpine lair: fashion it into car parts and fit them to his 1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom lll.
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Gold-winning design
The 2024 Phantom is client-commissioned and three years in the design and making. That client, a 007 fan, wanted a Phantom 8 and after meeting Rolls-Royce’s Bespoke team, hit upon a theme. The car will sport the registration number AU 1 – the same as Goldfinger’s Phantom lll – the plate believed to be a £300,000 acquisition in itself. ‘Au’ is the chemical symbol for gold.
In the movie, Sean Connery’s James Bond is tasked with stopping Goldfinger from strangling gold supplies and so vastly inflating the value of his haul. Goldfinger’s Phantom lll is central to the plot, and it is apt that Spear’s should meet the 2024 version where Bond and Goldfinger first encounter one another in the film: Stoke Park Golf Club, Buckinghamshire.
Some carmakers (Rolls-Royce says it is a ‘house of luxury’, not a carmaker) may have stopped at the yellow and black paintwork and stuck a bag of golf clubs in the boot.
But this car showcases what’s possible at the hands of designers and artisans at Rolls-Royce’s Goodwood HQ. You need to appreciate their skills first-hand.
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Movie cues
There’s a gold-plated golf putter attached to the bootlid. Movie cues abound: Goldfinger’s henchman Oddjob wields a harlequin umbrella, and Rolls-Royce’s trademark umbrellas, which fit inside the doors, are in the same style.
The car is startling in its opulence and, one might think, could come close to causing an international incident should uninformed eyes settle on the Phantom’s Royal Walnut picnic tables: inlaid in them, in 22-carat gold, are maps of Fort Knox.
Whoa… Stand down CIA. They’re fictional. Their design took six months and three prototypes to finalise.
There’s a ‘vault’ between the front seats, housing an illuminated solid gold bar shaped as a Phantom Speedform, a stylised miniature of the car; air vents, switches and stitching are finished in gold, the treadplates are gold-plated, and even the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) plaque is 24-carat plated, engraved with a specially-obtained number ending in 007.
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The artwork in the Phantom’s ‘Gallery’, running the width of the fascia, is a hand-drawn map of Switzerland’s Furka Pass, where 007 tracks Goldfinger in the movie. The starlight roof lining depicts the constellations, with pinprick lights, as they would have been on the night the Furka Pass car chase scene was filmed on July 11, 1964.
It’s a breathtaking piece of work.
So who is the owner? No chance. Rolls-Royce staunchly protects clients’ identities. End of story. But this car is a wonderful continuation of another.
