The Rolls Royce Silver Seraph Was The Last REAL Rolls - A British Luxury Forgotten Gem?

Rolls-Royce these days is on a roll building the best luxury cars in the world that everyone from royalty to rappers wants to be seen in but according to the purists modern rolls royces aren't true rolls royces the last proper roles in fact was this the silver serif of 1998. well I'm going to take this silver drive today and explain why [Music] but first our friends at Lancaster Insurance are running monthly giveaways you can win all sorts from experience days to tools restaurant vouchers and Tech so click the link below at the end of the video to enter their latest competition [Music] the Silver Spirit had been a massive success for Rolls-Royce It sold on average almost a thousand cars a year and properly modernized the much-loved Silver Shadow but by the late 80s early 90s it was also quite incredibly outdated it was based on a shadow itself which was a car designed in the late 1950s and what with the Mercedes S-Class and the BMW 7 Series showing up dynamically an all-new Japanese luxury car brand Lexus showing how impeccably built a luxury car could be the spirit really needed putting out to pasture unfortunately Rolls-Royce was owned by defense conglomerate Vickers a company that was itself struggling financially and didn't want to risk the enormous outlay of developing an all-new Ground Up luxury car would involve it was therefore decided that the new Rolls-Royce and its Bentley twin sister would have the same body shell and the same basic underpinnings to share some of the development costs roles's chief designer Graham Hull cited the 1950s Silver Cloud as his design inspiration for the new car saying that this for him was a definitive Rolls-Royce look it was stately and it was elegant but it was also graceful and not too attention-seeking and the result in the car that would be dubbed silver serif is much the same really this is an enormous car it dwarfs a Jaguar XJ and it sits on the road with a real sense of presence and yet it's stately it doesn't draw too much attention to itself it's got a real sense of dignity to it a class I'd say that whole succeeded in creating a modern Rolls-Royce that still had Echoes of the past but unfortunately Hull didn't get it all his own way the new Rolls Royce would be platform sharing with the new Bentley remember and Bentley's Grill was a lot more rounded and softer Edge than that blood Rolls-Royce Grill so you'll notice that the Seraph has still got the typical Rolls-Royce grille but it also swollen around the edges it's a bit more rounded and to be honest it actually I think makes it look more modern now around the time the Seraph was being developed BMW had shown an interest in purchasing Rolls-Royce and it even approached them with a concept for what they thought British luxury car for the new age should look like that ultimately evolved into a concept car known as the Bentley Java and when you look at the details of that car you can see Echoes of it in what would become the Rolls-Royce Silver Sarah on First Impressions Rolls-Royce were very keen to work with BMW but they weren't fully committed yet to selling out to the German car maker ultimately they finalized a technology sharing agreement now this meant that a lot of the electrics under the skin of the new roles and Bentley would come from Germany and they'd have access to their engine for the Bentley it would be BMW's twin turbo V8 but the Rolls-Royce V12 come January 98 we got the first all-new Rolls-Royce for over 30 years the all-new Silver Seraph so now driving it 25 years after its release what's it like well we'll start with that engine it's not a Rolls-Royce engine as we've said it's BMW's m73 5.4 liter V12 and it is a Masterpiece it is Silky Smooth Ultra refined and it's whisper quiet I'm doing nearly 50 miles an hour and you'd barely know it was running it's a phenomenally refined power plant that it puts the old l-series V8 of the past to shade it also develops 322 horsepower and that means if you are late for your business meeting or your business class flight put your foot down oh and it still knows how to shift but in truth the engine barely came into it the fact this was the first V12 Rolls Royce since the 1930s was just a footnote in the serif CV more importantly was that it would feel modern the serif is 65 stiffer than the spirit that it replaces and driving it along even slowly you can tell it doesn't have the flex in the chassis that the old card does it doesn't shudder and Shake over bumps nearly as much he's so much more refined there's no creaking of the leather or flexing of the dash and the wind noise is far far quieter and then there's the suspension the serif has got adaptive suspension which automatically softens itself off when you're just cruising and will firm up if you drive more aggressively now let's be clear it's still not an M5 chasing Sports salute but if you need to get a move on on a cross-country Road it does account for its self remarkably well the steering's a little bit weightier than the spirit so you've got more idea what the front wheels are doing and it does cling on give it a moment to account for the fact it's nearly two and a half tons and that smooth ride and compose suspension means this old bus can cover ground rather quickly just cling on in the tight Corners because uh yeah she's got a little bit of roll whoa but really all that b Road Lark isn't what the Seraph is about so let's go back onto this dual carriageway where you can see what a lovely interior it has yes it's got some BMW switch gear an awful lot of it in fact if you're familiar with the 90s BMW none of these climate controls or the hazard switches or the radio or even the stalks or the steering wheel once you peel the Rolls-Royce leather off will look unfamiliar to you but when you put on all the Rolls-Royce finishes it's still a magnificent place to be I've got these fantastic Walnut Dash leather on every surface including the headlining soft squidgy seats with phenomenal heating elements in them and little Chrome touches here and there that remind you you are better than the bloke in the seven Series yeah it's not a pure bread rolls interior like we saw in the spirit but when you look how much better put together it is and the fact that nothing rattles or wobbles and everything still works exactly as it should frankly if all the electrical bits are put together by Germans who know what they're doing I've got no problem with that in 1998 Vickers put Rolls-Royce up for sale and after seeing how well they work with BMW most people assume that the Bavarian car maker would put in the highest bid and indeed BMW were Keen offering up 340 million pounds to buy Rolls-Royce but then there was a last minute change of Fate Volkswagen's Ferdinand pierek who by this point was hell-bent on world domination wanted Rolls-Royce for himself and beat 430 million pounds for it Volkswagen one out and they now owned Rolls-Royce but they hadn't read the small print because yes they did own Rolls-Royce but all they actually owned was the factory the planting crew and the intellectual property but Vickers still own the rights to the Rolls-Royce name the flying lady and the double r logo and without that you haven't got a Rolls-Royce not to mention BMW who at this point were a bit sore about losing out to Volkswagen put a 12-month notice in for the supply of the V12 engine for the serif and that meant that in just a year's time Volkswagen wouldn't even have a power plant for the car that they couldn't match as a Rolls-Royce What followed was one of the most intense drawn out and high-profile legal negotiations in the car industry ever ultimately by July 1998 the paperwork had all been signed and BMW would be taking ownership of Rolls-Royce they'd allow Volkswagen to keep using their engines until the end of 2002 and Volkswagen would be keeping hold of Bentley come 1999 they'd be building the Arnage the sister cars the silver serif with the old six and three quarter liter L Series V8 the engine that the purists would really rather it had in the first place with all the paperwork done BMW sent the builders down to West Sussex to build an all-new Rolls-Royce Factory to build the new Phantom come 2002 but they were so geared up on making the new Phantom that the serif wouldn't make the transition to the new plan it was axed after just four years and 1500 and 70 units sold and that's why many purists say the silver serif was the last true Rolls-Royce yeah it's got some BMW influence to improve bits behind the scenes but it's still a Rolls-Royce through and through a fantastic example of British luxury built in crew where rolls royces always were it's also a shame given what a lovely car this is that it didn't live half as long as it's Bentley anage twin sister and maybe that's not such a bad thing you know because Seraph means Angelic like a star for example now the Seraph didn't live nearly as long as the Bentley anage but they do say that the star that shines twice as bright lives half as long [Music] this video is proudly sponsored by Lancaster Insurance give them a call on 01480-400-889 for an insurance quote on your classic car and don't forget to click the link below to enter their latest competition

Channel: Classics World

Views: 148,869

Keywords: rolls royce, rolls-royce, silver shadow, luxury car, dream car, exotic car, british car, driving classic cars, bentley, car meet, car show, classic car, vintage car, retro car, car review, driving, test drive, acceleration, classics world, road test, old car, retro cars, cheap classic cars, vlog, silver spirit, limo, cheap bentley, cheap luxury car, turbo r, bentley turbo r, mulsanne, arnage, red label, 6.75 v8, bentley arnage, rolls, seraph, silver seraph, crewe, rr, luxury, v12

Id: IO8HS57vzfs

Length: 9min 49sec (589 seconds)

Published: Wed May 31 2023