To commemorate the 60th anniversary of the release of the Bond thriller Goldfinger, Rolls-Royce has built a one-off Phantom Extended that is a modern take on the 1937 Phantom III Sedanca de Ville that the eponymous villain built out of smuggled gold.
In 1964, Bondmania was at its height as the film adaptation of Ian Fleming's novel Goldfinger hit the screen. The third in the 007 series, motoring enthusiasts remember it for two iconic cars. The first is the gadget-laden Aston Martin DB5 driven by James Bond and the other is the 1937 Phantom III Sedanca de Ville that supervillain Auric Goldfinger built out of solid gold as a way of smuggling the precious metal from England to Switzerland.
Well, not the entire car was made out of gold. Try making an engine block, suspension springs, or a chassis out of 24 carat gold and you'll be in for a mess of hurt because the precious metal is ductile and has a low melting point. Instead, it's the bodywork of Goldfinger's Phantom that was made of 18 carat gold while the more essential mechanical bits were made of steel, vanadium, and the like.
At any rate, aside from avoiding customs, the cinematic Phantom played a pivotal role in the film as Bond plants a tracking device on the limo and tails it across the picturesque Continental mountain roads that Fleming drove over on his holidays for decades.
Mind you, Fleming didn't have a sniper taking pot shots at him in the Alps like Bond did.
Built by Rolls-Royce's Bespoke Collective, the new Phantom Extended is more than an updated version of the 1937 model. It's intended as a tribute to Goldfinger and the other 11 times a Rolls-Royce has appeared in a Bond film, as well as showcasing the company's engineering and hand-crafting traditions in a single car that took three years to create.
Aside from the famous Rolls-Royce grille, the Goldfinger Phantom not only echoes the livery of the cinematic version, it also carefully matches the two-tone color scheme. In addition, the black 21-inch disc wheels sport silver floating hubcaps for contrast. The exterior also introduces the air of whimsy that went into the design, with the Spirit of Ecstasy mascot plated in silver and gold in such a way as to suggest that the sculpture is 'really' made of gold, under a silver disguise that has worn away.
This motif is carried on to a greater degree in the interior, with a hidden vault in the center console containing an 18 carat gold speedform of the Phantom. There are also a number of gold accents, including a fictional map of Fort Knox on a tray table and the inner lid of the glovebox that is debossed with a quote from Auric Goldfinger, "This is gold, Mr. Bond. All my life, I’ve been in love with its color, its brilliance, its divine heaviness."
(Personally, I would have preferred what he said as a warning to Bond in the novel: "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action.")
Other bits plated in real gold include the air vents, the treadplates, the 'bullets' on the leather seat piping, and the VIN plaque engraved with a specially obtained vehicle identification number ending in 007.
In the passenger cab, the front fascia is made up of a steel and gold topographic map of the Furka Pass, where Bond played cat and mouse with Goldfinger and his henchman Oddjob. Looking up, the ceiling is covered in light-up stars in the configuration of the sky over the Furka Pass on July 11, 1964 – the day shooting of the film ended in the Swiss Alps.
Just to show that the designers were sticklers for detail, the official British registration plate reads AU 1 – the same as the Phantom in the movie. If you look in the boot (or trunk), there's a gold-plated putter in honor of the golf duel the characters played in the film and a pair of Harlequin umbrellas that match the ones in that scene.
Oh, and if you look in the top of the boot, there's a duplicate of the tracking device that Bond planted in Goldfinger's car – only this one is a projector that shines the 007 logo on the carpet below.
Rolls-Royce has not released a value for the Goldfinger Phantom, but the company said in a statement that it has been delivered to a significant Rolls-Royce client and collector based in England.
"Bringing Phantom Goldfinger into being was one of the Bespoke Collective’s greatest creative journeys to date," says Nick Rhodes, Bespoke Designer, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. "The elegant and whimsical features that reference the film’s most memorable moments are an exquisite demonstration of the power of Bespoke in adding a new chapter to an existing story. It was a privilege to be a part of the creative team that brought this highly sought-after collector’s piece to life."
Source: Rolls-Royce
