Used buying guide
The Spirit of Ecstasy can bring financial agony if you buy an old Rolls without knowing what’s what. So John Evans gives the lowdown on the Silver Spirit, priced from £5k
Cheap Rolls-royce Silver Spirits
ARolls-royce for Mondeo money: it may be an old used car chestnut, but it never ceases to be true. Once upon a time, it was an old 1970s Shadow I or II for the price of a Ford Mondeo Mk1, but now that the best of those (the Rolls, not the Ford) are nudging £70,000, it’s that model’s successor, the Silver Spirit, that squares up to Henry’s finest. Even then, a new entry-level Mondeo 1.0T 125PS Ecoboost Zetec is, at £21,945, around £5000 more expensive than a tidy Spirit II of the early 1990s.
“But consider the Spirit’s running costs,” you say.
“But consider the Mondeo’s depreciation,” we reply.
Still, we get the point. Depreciation is an invisible curse, whereas spending a few hundred pounds every now and then to keep an old Spirit alive is all too real. The model hails from an age when a round of golf couldn’t be interrupted by the grubby business of designing cars, even Rolls-royces. It was launched in 1980 and only ceased production in 1998. In fact, it was based on the Silver Shadow that had been launched way back in 1965 and that, in 1975, gained rack and pinion steering and improved suspension to become the Shadow II. Each was powered by a 6.75-litre pushrod V8 driving the rear wheels through a three-speed GM automatic.
The bulk of the Shadow II’S underpinnings and mechanicals were inherited by the Spirit. Its selflevelling suspension was improved, especially at the rear, but the Spirit still wallowed and wafted. The ‘six and three-quarter’ engine, now producing 200bhp, still breathed through carburettors, too.
Six long years passed until, in 1986, it gained mechanical fuel injection, bringing a hike in power to 215bhp, and anti-lock brakes and electrically reclining backrests. Then, in 1990, the Spirit II was launched with adaptive suspension that cycled through Comfort, Normal and Sport settings, depending on road conditions. The interior benefited from a revised fascia, now with four eyeball vents instead of two, and ‘organ stops’ to control airflow.
Two years later, the three-speed auto became a four-speed overdrive auto, still sourced from GM. In 1994, the Spirit III arrived with electronic Motronic injection and 240bhp.
Finally, in 1996, what would have been the Spirit IV (had it been named that) was launched with Zytec engine management and fashionable design touches such as wraparound bumpers and smarter alloy wheels. In 1997, the model bowed out, leaving the longer-wheelbase Silver Spur to carry the torch.
Four variants and 18 years: there’s a lot of potential for confusion, so check the chassis number on a plate near the driver’s door. A specialist will be able to decipher it. The first letter is the build year (it runs A to W – or 1980 to 1998 – but skips I,O, Q and U). Buy a good one and odds are that it will hold its value. You can’t say that about a Mondeo.
The Rolls-royce Silver Spirit was launched in 1980 and only ceased production in 1998