Rolls-Royce has revealed the history behind the name chosen for its new battery-electric vehicle, Spectre. With its long history of using notable names for its cars – from Phantom to Wraith, Dawn and Ghost, there’s always been a sense of exclusivity that goes along with each new model.
The Spectre name was first recorded in the Company’s archives in 1910 when Chassis 1601 was built. Claude Johnson, the commercial managing director of Rolls-Royce at the time, used it as a demonstrator of sorts, for trial use, and called it ‘The Silver Spectre’. The fate of the prototype was uncertain, but without question, no Rolls-Royce would be named that again until well into the twentieth century.
In 1930, Co-Founder, Sir Henry Royce began developing a brand-new V12 engine for a completely new chassis with independent front suspension. His death in 1933 however, meant that he never saw the project through to completion. The new car, 30EX, was finally ready for road-testing in November 1934.
As with all innovations, maintaining secrecy around the new V12 engine was commercially critical. Therefore, together with its chassis number, 30EX was assigned a codename: ‘Spectre’. Nine further EX cars, with the ‘Spectre’ codename would follow, the car however entered production as Phantom III in 1936.
Like the EX cars of the past, the present-day Spectre represents a bold and enormously significant shift, both technically and philosophically, for Rolls-Royce. As the first all-electric Rolls-Royce, it marks an evolution in powertrain technology arguably even greater than the introduction of the marquee’s first V12 engine – the configuration, which after almost 80 years, is still used in every current Rolls-Royce model. The Spectre name itself sits alongside Ghost, Phantom and Wraith as an evocation of silence, refinement and mystery; of something imagined and dreamlike that exists outside normal parameters and experience.
