Rolls-Royce Black Badge - Born from Heritage

"From its very earliest days, Rolls-Royce has attracted gratis spirits, creative minds and those who seek to challenge established conventions. Though from entirely unlike backgrounds, our founders both refused to be leap by the norms and expectations of early on 20th Century society.  Information technology was their backbone, vision and willingness to push boundaries that made them who they were – and our company what it is today.

These wonderful celebrated cars are perfect examples of how that rebellious spirit infuses our brand story, and continues in the modern era with our Black Bluecoat products ."

Torsten Müller-Ötvös, Chief Executive Officeholder, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars

Introduction

The want for self-expression is fundamental to the human status.  It is one of the principal reasons clients are drawn to Rolls-Royce, which offers matchless opportunities to push boundaries, redefine what's possible and challenge established conventions.

Our Black Bluecoat series of motor cars captures this spirit in extremis.  And today, we expect at how individualism, iconoclasm and even outright rebellion pervaded the marque's history from its inception and continues to inform the unique offering Rolls‑Royce extends to its gimmicky clients.

Although their backgrounds could hardly have been more different, the company's founders both successfully challenged norms and conventions that might otherwise accept jump them to unthinkable mediocrity.

Henry Royce overcame poverty, deprivation and a lack of formal teaching to go a world-class engineer who created 'the best cars in the world', eventually being ennobled for his achievements.  Cambridge-educated The Hon. Charles Stewart Rolls was born an aristocrat: he could have called a life of ease, indolence and privilege, but opted instead for the grease, crud and frequent peril of early on motor-racing and aviation, becoming a leading pioneer in both fields.

Today, nosotros would call them 'disruptors' – outliers, visionaries and subversives who shape the world by doing things in ways no i else ever dreams – or dares – to try.  No wonder so, that the marque has always proved so beguiling to others who share their rebellious nature.

The Black Badge family of Rolls-Royce motor cars, launched in 2016, is the ultimate expression of this spirit of individualism, self-expression, creativity and iconoclasm.  And while clients have a well-nigh unlimited choice of exterior finishes, one colour above all withal consistently exerts a special fascination and powerful allure when practical to our motor cars – just as it has throughout the marque's long history.  Black.

The colour black has long been associated with power, strength and authority.  It is intense and substantial. Black besides speaks of elegance and conviction.

Over the decades, there take been many notable examples of bespoke Rolls-Royce motor cars finished in blackness.  Each of the following examples, spanning more than 30 years, has a unique place in the marque's history and demonstrates how its owner took the all-blackness theme in a unique and memorable direction.

 1933 – Phantom II Continental (94MY)

In 1930, at the personal asking of Henry Royce, designer Ivan Evernden penned an experimental Phantom II Continental, designated 26EX, designed specifically for long-distance Continental touring.  Information technology had a brusk chassis and close-coupled four-seat saloon body, with the two spare wheels mounted vertically behind the luggage compartment for optimum weight distribution.  The coachwork, erected by Barker & Co, saturday on a sub-frame designed to cope with sustained loftier speeds and powerful braking forces.

On its first outing, Evernden and Don Carlos de Salamanca collection the machine to a concours d'elegance in Biarritz, where information technology won the Grand Prix d'Honneur.  Following this victory, Rolls‑Royce decided to launch a 'serial' model with the same mechanical attributes and overall coachwork dimensions equally 26EX, giving coachbuilders and owners scope to accommodate their own gustation in design.

The first such car, 94MY, built in 1933 for a Mr Samuel Coxhill, has bodywork known every bit an 'Owen Fixed Head Coupé', a specialism of London coachbuilder Gurney Nutting. The adjustable front end bucket seats, twin windscreen wipers and flush-fitting direction-indicators behind the side windows were all unusual for the menstruum and intended to make long-distance Continental touring more relaxed.

Designer Ivan Evernden declared: "It is the criterion of a skilful car that 1 can drive information technology the whole day long and at the end feel fresh and relaxed enough to enjoy dinner".

At that fourth dimension, the vast majority of Rolls-Royce coachwork was finished in either black, or shades of maroon or blue, so dark every bit to almost seem black.  94MY was ordered in black with "special dark-brown leather, piped in light brownish, carpets and headlining to tone, and woodwork to be highly polished veneers".  Combining high performance with superlative comfort and a unique personalised finish, if whatsoever 1930s Rolls-Royce could lay claim to embodying the spirit of today's Blackness Badge, it is this one.

 1960 – Phantom V (5AT30)

The Phantom V was launched in 1959 to replace the venerable Silver Wraith.  A much larger machine, information technology was intended primarily for chauffeur-driven utilise, and all merely a very few bodies were of limousine design.  About were finished in black and used either on formal occasions, or for private use by members of the wealthy establishment.

One exception was 5AT30.  Delivered in September 1960, its proud owner was HRH The Knuckles of Gloucester, third son of King George 5 and Queen Mary, and uncle to HM Queen Elizabeth II.  The trunk was based on coachbuilder James Immature's PV15 design, today regarded as amidst the nigh elegant on the Phantom V chassis.

Although virtually as 'establishment' as information technology's possible to be, His Royal Highness clearly had strong ideas about what he wanted in his Phantom 5.  His most obvious departure from the accepted norm is the paint combination of matte black to the horizontal surfaces and gloss black on the vertical planes.

Other Bespoke items include a much smaller-than-standard backlight, big fog lamps, door-mounted driving mirrors, sliding shutters to the rear windows and two Stephane Grebel spotlights. The forepart of the auto is dominated past Lucas R100 headlamps, in identify of the usual faired-in headlights.

The Spirit of Ecstasy mascot, though supplied, was not fitted, her place taken by the Duke's own mascot of an eagle in flight.  And mayhap for the first time in the marque's history, the chassis card states that the car was supplied with 'an umbrella in holder' – a standard characteristic on today's Rolls-Royce motor cars.

On thirty Jan 1965, the Duke and Duchess were travelling home from Sir Winston Churchill'due south funeral when the car skidded off the road and down a shallow beach, turning over three times and landing on its roof!  None of the occupants suffered serious injury; and such was the resilience of the James Young coachwork that 5AT30 was rebuilt and continued to render sterling service to its owner for years to come up.

1965 – Phantom V (5VD73)

In 1964, The Beatles stormed the world with A Hard Solar day'south Night.  In December, as a gift to himself, John Lennon ordered a make-new Rolls-Royce Phantom V from R. S. Mead of Maidenhead.  The specification was, as i might await, highly individual: he wanted the car non simply to be blackness, simply black everywhere, inside and out, including all the brightwork that would unremarkably be finished in chromium plate or stainless steel.

The car, built by Mulliner Park Ward, was duly supplied with all-black gloss paintwork, including the wheel discs and bumpers.  Just the iconic Pantheon grille and Spirit of Ecstasy mascot retained their conventional chrome finish, at the marque's insistence.

It was also 1 of the first cars in Britain to have blacked-out windows, made from darkened, reflective Triplex Deeplight glass, iii/16" thick in the rear doors and 3/iv" in the rear quarter lights, backlite and division glass – but not, as one might suppose, solely for reasons of privacy.  "People think they've got black windows to hide.  Information technology's partly that, simply it's too for when yous're coming dwelling house late," Lennon told a Rolling Stone interviewer in 1965.  "If it'southward daylight when you're coming home, information technology's still night within the car – you only shut all the windows and you're still in the club."

The interior featured black Bedford cord material and blackness nylon rugs in the rear compartment, and black leather in the front.  At that place were electrical aerials for a radio and a Perdio Portarma television gear up, and a seven-piece ready of black fitted luggage. Legend has it that the car likewise had a record thespian, radiotelephone, fridge, writing table and blood-red mood-lighting: this remains unproven, only could hands have been later additions; likewise, a rear seat that, according to many accounts, could exist converted into a pull-out bed.

Such assuming, imaginative and unconventional choices are, of course, entirely consistent with Lennon's condition as one of the 20th Century's greatest cultural innovators.  Quite apart from changing the face of popular music forever, he's also credited with being amongst the first non-athletes to clothing trainers as footwear, abroad from sporting grounds, much like the streetwear phenomenon that pervades the catwalks and boardrooms of the 21^st century.  In a photo of the Fab Iv taken in 1967, Lennon is wearing what appears to exist a pair of Adidas Stan Smith tennis shoes – still ane of the virtually desirable designs from 'the brand with three stripes' more half a century later.

After, the car was repainted in a game-changing, bright psychedelic electric yellow, embellished with flowers, Romany scrolls and signs of the zodiac.  It is wholly unique, indelibly identified with its possessor and, in certain quarters, generated its share of controversy – perhaps the perfect encapsulation of the Black Badge spirit.

That unquenchable spirit continues to exist expressed in new and dynamic ways through the ever-evolving Rolls-Royce Black Badge family.

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