People have a tendency to see an actor or actress in their first high-profile role and think they’re an overnight success. The truth is there’s no such thing. That success was earned through years of hard work that many people were never aware of and hit a peak with their appearance in a blockbuster film. The Rolls-Royce Phantom III may be an iconic part of the James Bond movie franchise because it was the villain’s car in 1964’s “Goldfinger”, but it accomplished more than that in the years leading up to its big silver screen moment.
According to Rolls-Royce, at the beginning of the 1930s, Sir Henry Royce was aware the company was close to hitting the technical limits of its I6 engine. He also recognized the threat of the more powerful V8s, V12s, and V16s being produced by American carmakers. To ensure Rolls-Royce’s relevance, he developed a 7.3-liter V12 for the Phantom III, which was launched in 1936 and produced until 1939 – making it the last car developed by Royce before his death in 1933. Not only was it the company’s first V12, but it was also shorter and, with 165 horsepower, more powerful than the 7.6-liter inline-six used in the Phantom II.
The new V12 also benefited other areas of the Phantom III. Its shorter length allowed the hood to be shortened and the passenger compartment to be enlarged. Everybody onboard enjoyed reduced noise, vibration, and harshness and the improved ride quality provided by another first for Rolls-Royce: an independent front suspension.
Rolls-Royce only produced 710 Phantom IIIs. One of them, a 1937 Sedanca de Ville (aka Town Car) was originally commissioned for Huttleston Rogers Broughton, who was born in American but emigrated to England and became the first Lord Fairhaven of Anglesey Abbey. He had the Barker coachwork and other components almost entirely blacked out except for the white coachlines and the sandblasted radiator shutters. For its role in “Goldfinger,” the Phantom III was refinished in black and yellow and given a license plate that read “AU 1”, which has several meanings: in addition to being a reference to the symbol for gold on the periodic table of elements, it also has a tie to British automotive history. According to Rolls-Royce, “AU was the original British numberplate code designating that a motor car had been registered in Nottingham and AU 1 was issued in 1901 for one of the first vehicles in the area.”
The Phantom III in “Goldfinger” was a means of transportation for 007’s adversary Auric Goldfinger and his murderous, bowler hat-throwing chauffeur, Oddjob, as well as a major plot device. Goldfinger was obsessed with gold and found a creative way to smuggle it repeatedly. He had the bodywork under his Phantom’s two-tone finish duplicated and made out of gold, which could be melted down once he reached his smelting facility and transformed into bars that could then be passed further through his criminal enterprise. Goldfinger would then have his car’s original body panels put back on so he could travel care-free and start the process all over again. His ultimate goal? Detonating a nuclear bomb inside Fort Knox and causing the value of his holdings to increase exponentially.
In one major way, the first V12 Rolls-Royce influenced the marque’s first all-electric vehicle nearly 90s years later: Spectre was the codename for 10 experimental Phantom IIIs built between 1934 and 1937.
And there’s more to come in the story of the Goldfinger Phantom: on October 25, Rolls-Royce will make an announcement that will further “the legacy of this extraordinary motor car, and Rolls-Royce’s connection to the James Bond film franchise.” Perhaps the company will be releasing a limited production run of Goldfinger-influenced Phantom VIIIs?
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