BL-24 - Flipbook - Page 147
TRIVIAL PURSUITS
By Adam HayNicholls
Adam Hay-Nicholls is
a journalist and author
specialising in motoring,
luxury, and travel. He
contributes to titles including
Boisdale Life, The Times and
Country Life, and is known for
his witty, 昀椀rst-hand takes on
high-end cars and culture.
what you’re left with is a 1960s motor
that’s basically brand new bar the
chassis plate. All the nostalgia, none
of the leaks.
Most novel is the powertrain. At this
point purists may start to bleed from
the teeth, but as well as restoring the
car and putting in things like electric
dampers, modern electric windows
and windscreen wipers, USB ports
and a discrete sat nav and reversing
camera (which you will need),
under the bonnet is a vast, humming
sarcophagus of lithium.
oil. And given a Rolls-Royce should
be smooth, silent and bullet-proof, it
makes more sense than any other EV
out there. Another party that’s taken
an interest are extremely high-end
hotels who love to have a statement
piece parked out front, something
truly memorable to whisk guests from
the airport, and they like that this
emphasises their green credentials.
Lunaz are in talks with a number of
properties, including the Maybourne
group, which manages The Berkeley,
The Connaught, The Emory and
T
his year, Rolls-Royce has
toasted 100 years of its
Phantom limousine. It’s a
car that still makes people
stand to attention. It is, and has always
been, an Everest of metalwork – a
monument to the idea that re昀椀nement
is simply vulgarity with better
manners. It’s a rolling reliquary of
British self-regard and it’s maintained
its reputation through a century of
constant, often profound change.
The Phantom V presented on these
pages is the most iconic of eight
generations. This is the car you buy
when you’ve run out of space to store
your art collection and have taken to
hoarding duchesses. It came to market
in 1959, and over 13 years 832 were
built. They were delivered to royals,
rockers and rogues. Famously, John
Lennon had his tarted up to look like
a gypsy caravan, which made the
Queen weep into her gin. They were
all bespoke, but the Phantom seen
here is the most unusual of all. Like
The Beatles’ back catalogue, it’s been
remastered.
While Rolls-Royce are busy making
Phantom VIIIs, a start-up called
Lunaz, based in Silverstone, has
turned its attention to the Spirit of
Ecstasy’s vintage hits. They’ll exhume
an old Rolls, strip the whole thing
down to the paint, and re-build it with
discrete modern technology and the
latest in leather and marquetry, so
The Phantom V now has sat-nav, which would’ve been spy-昀椀 in the ‘60s
Are you telling me this sucker is
electrical? Yes, m’lady. In place of the
original 6.23-litre V8 is a proprietary
powertrain which produces just shy
of 400bhp (the original only mustered
220bhp). Weight has only increased by
90kg, as it was so sumo-sized to begin
with - a whalish 2.7 tonnes.
The price: More than a million quid.
Who’s in the market for this emissionfree leviathan that’s 30-times the cost
of a Tesla and took 5,500 hours to
build? Very wealthy people, obviously,
who appreciate classic lines and stateof-the-art tech, who perhaps have
been put off classic car ownership
before because they don’t want to
breakdown, belch fumes or cover their
alabaster gravel driveways in engine
147
BOISDALELIFE.COM
ISSUE 24
Claridge’s in London. This is where
epic blag of the day No.1 comes in:
I’ve acquired an impressive suite at
The Berkeley overlooking Hyde Park,
champagne in the ice bucket for after
my spin. Epic blag of the day No.2
is parked in front, resplendent in
navy blue, with pale hide and enough
walnut to reforest Surrey. A Phantom
昀椀t for the two kings – Charles III
and Elvis. The owner of this 1961
piece of automotive sculpture is
Adar Poonawalla, an Indian biotech
billionaire who collects Rolls-Royces
the way other people collect air miles,
who also happens to be an investor in
Lunaz (something he has in common
with Sir David Beckham).
