Rolls-Royce Phantom
Delaware Drive, Westhampnett, Chichester, UK
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The Rolls-Royce Phantom nameplate dates back to 1925, but the modern era began in 2003, when BMW relaunched the brand with an all-new Phantom built from the ground up at a purpose-built factory on the Goodwood Estate in West Sussex, England — the first car fully engineered and assembled under BMW's ownership of Rolls-Royce. Every Phantom is still effectively hand-built, with a body-in-white aluminum spaceframe and an interior finished to order through the marque's bespoke commissioning program, where buyers can specify anything from a hand-painted coachline to a starlit headliner made of hundreds of individually placed fiber-optic lights meant to mimic a night sky. Its rear-hinged "coach doors," a design carried over from the pre-war Phantoms, close themselves with a discreet motorized assist, and the Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament — introduced in 1911 and still hand-polished stainless steel or, on request, frosted crystal or gold-plated — remains the single most recognized emblem in the luxury car world. Decades after Rolls-Royce stopped chasing performance-car headlines, the Phantom has stayed the reference point for what "the best car in the world" is supposed to mean — the vehicle of choice for heads of state and the standard every other ultra-luxury sedan is still measured against.
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