Rolls-royce Silver Shadow
Serious mechanical and body expenditure plus painstaking maintenance set this late Shadow apart, says Paul Hardiman
This very tidy Silver Shadow has a comprehensive service history and has barely been used since 2011.
Supplied new by Mann Egerton of Nottingham, it was originally registered AJM 9 and sold to the second owner a year later at 10,904 miles. The third owner covered 35,000 miles in seven years; bills for this period total £18,000 when a Rolls-royce factory handling kit of uprated springs and dampers was fitted.
It was sold on again in May 1994 and re-registered 2T, at which point £23,000 was spent on a bare-metal, screens-out repaint in its original Shell Grey over Dark Tudor Grey, finished off with hand-applied red coachlines. The service book has 15 stamps to 75,121 miles in May 1995 when the last owner bought it.
The history file includes handbooks, invoices from Rolls-royce main agents and specialists and every MOT back to 1986. The most recent bills date from June 2019, for brake hoses, alternator, silencer, plus new calipers in July 2019.
The body is very straight aside from one small ding in the offside rear door. The rear wheelarch lips are in good condition and there are no cracks in the paint around the rear window. The bumpers are fine, save for one rear quarter finisher being slightly wavy and misaligned, which is fairly normal on these large-bumper S2s – but some of the side chrome and the door handles are a little tarnished and the wheeltrims are lightly scraped and dinged. There’s no discernible rot, but the sill undersides will need a clean, paint and Waxoyl before too long.
There are no leaks underneath, and plenty of grease on the handbrake linkages. Tyres are correct Avon Turbosteels with plenty of tread. The front crossmember is slightly damp but there are no leaks from the steering rack. The plugs are new, transmission fluid clean and pink, coolant green and full and engine oil clean.
Inside, the re-treated St James Red leather is shiny and the carpets unworn under thick lambswool overmats. The veneers are good but starting to lift/ delaminate around the right ashtray and there’s slight wear around the air vents and a crack under the ‘fasten seatbelts’ light.
It goes noticeably better than the S1 we drove immediately before (December 2019), its firmer steering and a heavier feel on the road more in keeping with modern times. Gearchanges are smooth and kickdown responsive. The brake pedal feels wooden and unpredictable but press harder and the calipers bite well and the discs pull up straight. The car has since received two new brake accumulators.
Nearside seat fore/aft adjustment aside, all the electrics work, including the oil level function in the fuel gauge. All gauges remain in the normal range while driving. The aircon blows only weakly cold but will be regassed before sale and, in keeping with its history of being serviced to within an inch of its life, all of its life, the car will be checked once again before it leaves.