Since its public debut a hundred years ago, the Rolls-Royce Phantom has embarked on countless journeys and left its mark on the art world. It was filled with cauliflower by Salvador Dalí, revered by Andy Warhol and John Lennon, and featured prominently in numerous hip-hop videos.
In 1904, Charles Rolls and Henry Royce founded the automotive brand Rolls-Royce. Just over 20 years later, the Phantom was unveiled to the public—a model that quickly became the flagship of the British luxury automotive brand. Although the car underwent many different stages of development over the decades, one thing remained constant—its connection to the art world. »For 100 years, the Rolls-Royce Phantom has moved in the same circles as the world’s leading artists. As a symbol of self-expression, Phantom has often featured in incidents of creative significance – many of them defining moments of the last decade. As we mark Phantom’s centenary, it is the perfect time to reflect on this motor car’s endlessly intriguing legacy and the artistic personalities who played a role in shaping its story,« says Chris Brownridge, Chief Executive Officer at Rolls-Royce. According to Brownridge, the Phantom’s centenary is a good time to explore all the different points of contact between the Rolls-Royce brand and the world of art.
»The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll« in more ways than one: Elvis Presley’s Rolls-Royce Phantom, 1963
Dalí, Warhol, and the Cauliflower—Rolls-Royce Phantom in Art
And there were many such instances: Great artists such as Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Cecil Beaton were repeatedly seen in various models of the brand. Dame Laura Knight, the first woman admitted to the Royal Academy of Arts, even used a vehicle from the British luxury brand as a mobile studio. She was seen with it at racetracks like Epsom or Ascot. The world’s most prominent collectors were also drawn to the brand, including Jacquelyn de Rothschild, Peggy Guggenheim, and Nelson Rockefeller.
»Art is what you can get away with«? Andy Warhol’s exceptionally redesigned 1937 Phantom
However, the Phantom always held a special position when it came to creative exchange between these two worlds. For instance, in 1955, Salvador Dalí arrived at a lecture at the Sorbonne University in Paris in a black and yellow Rolls-Royce Phantom filled with 500 kilograms of cauliflower, which he had borrowed from a friend. However, this memorable moment was not the only time Dalí created an artistic tribute to the Phantom. A painting he created in 1934 for an illustrated book titled »Les Chants de Maldoror« featured a surreal interpretation of the vehicle. His artwork depicts the Phantom in a desolate, icy landscape, abandoned and seemingly frozen. Dalí’s talent for combining opulence with absurdity is particularly clearly and strikingly expressed in this depiction.
Automotive Summer of Love: John Lennon’s psychedelic-looking Rolls-Royce Phantom V, 1967
While Dalí only borrowed the Phantom for his spectacular cauliflower excursion, Andy Warhol actually owned one—a 1937 model that he had converted into a Shooting Brake in 1947. In 1972, Warhol and his Swiss agent Bruno Bischofberger happened upon an antique shop in Zurich where the vehicle was for sale. Warhol immediately bought it and had it shipped to New York. It wasn’t until 1978 that he sold the car to his friend and manager Fred Hughes.
To mark the Phantom’s centenary, Rolls-Royce invited contemporary artists Omar Aqil and Emmanuel Romeuf to artistically interpret both Dalí’s and Warhol’s connections with the Phantom. However, the tradition of artistic collaboration with the most important creatives of their time dates back to the brand’s beginnings. After all, it was Charles Robinson Sykes, a visual artist, who created the brand’s most important symbol—the Spirit of Ecstasy. Since 1911, the small statue, inspired by the Greek sculpture »The Winged Victory of Samothrace«, has adorned every vehicle from the British manufacturer.
The Rolls-Royce Phantom in Pop Culture
The Phantom has also left its mark on pop culture. Among other things, the car became known as the vehicle of the villain Auric Goldfinger in the eponymous 1964 James Bond film. In the same year, the episodic feature film »The Yellow Rolls-Royce« was produced in Great Britain, centering on a yellow Phantom II. Numerous musicians also owned a Phantom or were inspired by it. In 1963, at the height of his fame, Elvis Presley bought a Phantom V in Midnight Blue.
Centenary staging: A Rolls-Royce Phantom in the swimming pool; Tinside Lido, Plymouth, August 2025
John Lennon also owned a Phantom V. The car, originally painted black, accompanied him through different phases of his musical life. For instance, shortly before »Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band« was released, he had it painted yellow and brightly decorated. The younger generation saw the car as a perfect embodiment of the Summer of Love, while older people found it scandalous. For example, an elderly woman who saw Lennon’s brightly painted Phantom driving along Piccadilly in London was observed shouting: »How dare you do that to a Rolls-Royce!« Afterwards, she hit the paintwork with her umbrella.
Around the year 2000, the hip-hop scene also discovered the allure of the Phantom. Among others, Pharrell Williams and Snoop Dogg were seen with a Phantom VII in their 2004 music video for »Drop It Like It’s Hot.«
In August 2025, to mark its centenary, Rolls-Royce honored the Phantom legend with an unusual staging: A Phantom Extended, a decommissioned prototype, was submerged in the Art Deco swimming pool of Tinside Lido in Plymouth—the very place where the Beatles were photographed in 1967 during the filming of The Magical Mystery Tour. In the same year, John Lennon unveiled his yellow-painted Phantom V, which remains a symbol of an entire era to this day. Thus, the arc spans from the great artists of modernism to 20th-century pop culture—and shows how deeply the Phantom is rooted in the history of art and music. [SW]
