I was born into a world where there was simply no discussion on the subject. 'Everyone knew' that the Rolls-Royce was the best car in the world.
Top toffs affected one as proof that they had reached the zenith of toffery and the rest of us looked on with respect and admiration unalloyed with any enmity or resentment. For the most part anyway.
A Royce was timeless. It was the product of all the best, not only in engineering, but cabinetwork, panel beating, upholstering and finishing. Beyond that it was imbued with a spirit, whether quite of the ecstacy symbolised by its mascot, nonetheless something of the Silver Wraiths and Silver Ghosts to whom it was dedicated. A Rolls floated silently through the scenery serene and undisturbed by it.
Its interior was usually best viewed from the rear accommodations by way of a small dry sherry from the obligatory cocktail cabinet, while someone else took care of piloting duties. The emotional dividends of lumbering about in a thing the size of IKEA with a lazy V8 and torque convertor auto box were somewhat limited. Even posing at that end avails you little when the hoi-polloi and paparazzi are looking for someone of importance at the other end. The only people likely to notice you are custodians of the law of motion, so you daren't risk giving it large unless you've got a coat of arms on the roof.
Although most dearly departed were given a dignified exit in a coachbuilt Daimler, Armstrong-Siddeley or Humber Super Snipe, a number had their first ride in a Rolls at the last. My friend Roger Pennington acquired a used hearse in which he, all necessary TV tackle and a crew used to charge from one London hospital to another when they got a tip off about a juicy operation, during the early days of Associated Rediffusion.
The sixties brought us white and yellow Rolls-Royces, where previously there had only been black and grey, and they went from being bought predominantly by grey people to being a cool mount for the architects of the fashion and pop explosions.
The staunchly traditional and unchanging barges formed the perfect juxtaposition for the counterculture, deified and defiled in one move by those sporting soldiers' tunics and flowers in their hair.
Revolution was in the streets and also in the Moor Street factory in Derby where a smaller car bristling with new ideas and postwar technology was taking shape.
Silver Shadow was no longer a chassis onto which a bespoke arrangement of bodywork could be specified from the likes of Mulliner Park Ward in Willesden. It was a commercial model, with a standard configuration and a badge engineered Bentley sister ship.
A fine car from a technical point of view with little to criticise, it didn't really appeal in the same way to the captains of industry and, looking neither really knew or really old, probably found most of its fans in the US, the Carribbean or various banana republics shod in white sidewalls, although it did find willing customers here on the second hand - beg your pardon - preloved market. Arthur Daley springs to mind.
I shared the driving of one of the newer full-size euro models with a man from Farming Weekly. Neither of us was in any hurry to repeat the experience, though both impressed by the fact that the steering wheel lifted itself out of the way of what would be expected to be your fat stomach on entry and egress.
The driving experience, luxurious and cossetting as it was, put me in mind of a channel ferry, and my bucolic friend one of those tractors that's bigger than your smallholding. Rather than taste and refinement a la mobile gentleman's club, it had started to feel blingy and ostentatious. The thought of such an icon coming across as jumped-up would horrify my dad and does little for me. Class doesn't need to be obvious. In fact, it ceases to be class.
Now comes Cullinan - the Rolls-Royce of off roaders - and you can't odds the thought and engineering excellence that's gone into it. I don't doubt it is what the company claims and that it will provide a magic carpet ride on the rutted tracks of Nijny-Novgorod, and even Cheltenham for oligarchs, the red of braces, pirates, and the otherwise devoid of subtlety.
I salute its achievements in fact, but mourn for its loss of spirit.
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