Last of the big spenders

The last Silver Seraph will go out the door at Crewe in December. ALASTAIR SLOANE looks at the limousine's special place in motoring history.

Psst! Check the wardrobe in the spare room, the old chest of drawers in the garage, the suitcase from your great aunt's, the one full of old letters and documents?

You might strike it lucky. Shares in Apple-Macintosh perhaps. Maybe a painting, the deeds to a castle in County Clare, an oil well in Texas.

No luck? Well, sell the house, the bach, the boat, the car, the dog, the goldfish. Send the kids down the mine, the wife and in-laws to work.

Cash up quick because, boy, has Rolls-Royce got a deal for you. One hundred and seventy, in fact. The last of a line. Never again at this price. Don't delay. Offer ends August 31, 2001.

It does, too. In 27 days, Rolls-Royce will close off its list of orders for the final production run of 170 Silver Seraph limousines. End of story. No more Silver Seraphs. Ever. The last will go out the door in December, priced at $530,000 in New Zealand.

"The limited number gives aficionados of the famous marque a chance to invest in the last Rolls-Royce saloons," says the company.

"The exterior of the car features the option of a duo-tone paint scheme, in the style of the much-loved Silver Cloud, the first Rolls-Royce to be both engineered and built at (headquarters) Crewe.

"The wheels bear the Spirit of Ecstasy on the centre cap and all badging - on the radiator shell, boot and rear panels - in finished in red, as in the pre-1933 cars.

"On the front lower quarter panel a small but vital distinguishing highlight is a badge, set against a British Union flag, stating simply: 'Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, Crewe, England."'

Why the hullabaloo over the Silver Seraph? It was launched only in 1998. The Phantom series went from 1925 to 1991, for heaven's sake, and it didn't receive any special honour.

Ah, but the Silver Seraph is different. It has a special place in motoring history because it is the last Rolls-Royce saloon as such. As far as British tradition is concerned, anyway.

From the end of next year, BMW takes over the licence to make and distribute Rolls-Royce cars. Volkswagen already owns stablemate Bentley. It bought it a couple of years ago. It thought it bought Rolls-Royce, too, until BMW revealed it had the rights to the Rolls-Royce engine name. It was messy, but both German companies agreed to share the spoils.

The first Rolls-Royce was built in 1904. But Sir Charles Stewart Rolls had nothing to do with it. It was a Sir Henry Royce original.

Royce was a hard-working Manchester engineer and partner in a company making light fittings, dynamos and cranes. In 1903, he bought a second-hand French Decauville car. It proved totally unreliable. He told colleagues he would build his own two-cylinder car.

His rolled out his Royce early in 1904. It did what the Decauville couldn't - started first time, ran smoothly and was reliable.

Charles Rolls, meantime, had been driving a Peugeot in reliability trials around Britain and had set himself up as a car dealer, C. S. Rolls and Co. He had a partner, Claude Johnson, who had been organising the trials and who would ultimately become the first secretary of the Royal Automobile Club.

Rolls was ambitious. He wanted his name to be associated with cars in the same way as Chubb's was with safes and Steinway's with pianos.

Word of Royce's vehicle soon reached Rolls, and the two met in the Midland Hotel in Manchester on May 4, 1904. They agreed to join forces. Rolls would sell all the cars Royce could build.

The company would be known as Rolls-Royce. It would soon be building what were acknowledged as the "best cars in the world."

Rolls died in a flying accident in 1910 and Royce suffered a nervous breakdown soon after. But he recovered and along with Johnson steered the company on to greater things. Johnson's role was vital: he was known as the "hyphen" in Rolls-Royce.

* The Rolls-Royce badge was changed from red to black in 1933, not as popularly believed to commemorate Royce's death that year, but because Royce himself decided that black was aesthetically more appropriate.

* The company made only chassis until after the Second World War. Coachbuilders added the bodies.

* The oldest Rolls-Royce still on the road is a 1904 model owned by Thomas Love jun, of Scotland.

* Factory staff refer to the cars as "Royces" - never "Rollers."

* The radiator grille is made entirely by hand and eye - no measuring tools are used. It takes a day to make a radiator and five hours to polish it.

* The ashtray in a Rolls-Royce empties automatically. The car itself does not break down. It "fails to proceed."

* Since 1904, 61 different models have been built, including the various Bentleys produced since Rolls-Royce bought Bentley in 1931.

At Crewe, Rolls-Royce runs an "employee learning centre", an initiative encouraging staff to learn non-vocational subjects outside of working hours. George Ellis manages it.

"This year 1000 employees will have been on courses as far apart as golf lessons, Indian cooking, ballroom dancing, computer basics, maths and welding, all paid for by the company," he said.

"Last year I enrolled an employee on a joinery course and he has since made a bed. This year he is doing a bricklaying course - so he can build an extra bedroom to put the bed in."