Phantom was immersed in Rolls lore

GOODWOOD, England - Tim Leverton knew a thing or two about Rolls-Royce cars before his bosses at BMW put him in charge of developing an all-new one.

The 43-year-old ex-Land Rover engineer wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth. But there was a Silver Shadow in his family's garage.

Leverton's father was a Rolls-Royce engineer and regularly drove a mid-1960s vintage Shadow.

The Shadow was not only the luxury standard of its time, but was at the cutting edge of automotive technology. It's been a long time since you could say that about a Roller. Not since the Silver Shadow, in fact.

Young Tim Leverton got to know Rolls-Royce from the inside out and the experience would serve him well. In April 1999 he was appointed chief engineer of the new Rolls-Royce vehicle development project - code-named the RR01. He was the first engineer assigned to the project.

Leverton had come to BMW through Rover group, where he'd been engineering director of Rover Body & Pressings. Starting in 1995 - after BMW acquired the British carmaker - he was responsible for Land Rover's Luxury and Full Size Vehicle Platform.

His father had been engineering director of the diesel division at Rolls-Royce Motors.

"I grew up with Rolls," Leverton said. "It was a major part of my consciousness. I knew what Rolls-Royce stood for in engineering terms."

His job was to put Rolls-Royce back on the track that it had been off since the Silver Shadow debuted in 1965.

"We set out to recapture the Rolls-Royce spirit of the first third of the 20th century," he said. "During the last third of the century the resources were not available to allow Rolls-Royce to do what it wanted to do. So we tried to see the evolution of Rolls, not just build on what car came immediately before it."

In July 1998, the UK defense group Vickers sold Rolls-Royce and Bentley Motor Cars to Volkswagen. But then-BMW CEO Bernd Pischetsrieder - in his famous counterplay - gained control of the Rolls-Royce name. BMW's ownership of the rights became effective this month. Bentley stays with VW.

In Munich, project planning for a new Rolls began immediately after the 1998 deal. In February 1999, a makeshift studio was quietly established in a former Westminster Bank on posh Bayswater Road near Hyde Park in central London. Inside BMW, the clandestine studio was referred to as "The Bank."

The design team, headed by Englishman Ian Cameron, included three exterior stylists - a Briton, an American and a Japanese; and two interior designers - an Englishman and an American.

All the designers came from within BMW, hand-picked by group styling boss Chris Bangle. Bangle had invited BMW's global design staff to apply for jobs at the new Rolls by submitting portfolios of their work.

Cameron, 52, a graduate of the Royal College of Art, brought a unique experience to the job. He had spent six years in Turin at Pininfarina, which designs all Ferraris. As a result, he must be the only stylist in history to have involved himself both with Ferraris and Rolls-Royce.

In 1981, Cameron became chief designer at Iveco-Fiat and since 1992 has worked at BMW. He was project leader for the current-generation 3 series, the Z8 sports car and the L30 Range Rover.

"The [Bayswater Road] studio location gave the designers access to the experience we were trying to capture," said Leverton. "Every 10 minutes a Rolls-Royce would go by. It must have been the densest population of Rolls-Royce cars in world."

To get the hang of Rolls, the design team also threw themselves into the English social season, visiting Ascot and the Henley Regatta, for instance, probing Rolls owners about their cars.

"We drove a lot of cars to understand not only what Rolls was, but what the British coachbuilding tradition was," Leverton said.

While design work was going on in London, Leverton led a team of engineers in Munich. After studying Rolls' history and the great variety of body types created by the old-time coachbuilders that used Rolls-Royce chassis, the project team chose two cars they felt should influence the new one.

One was the 1955 Silver Cloud I.

"It was the last traditional Rolls-Royce-looking car, in the tradition of British coachbuilding," Leverton said.

The other was the mid-1960s Silver Shadow, the last truly contemporary Rolls-Royce, a car with state-of-the-art technology. For instance, the Silver Shadow was the first Rolls with unibody construction and air suspension.

"The Silver Shadow was true to its heritage, but embedded in it was very modern technology, such as power lifts and air conditioning," said Leverton. "We had the vision that our car had to be a state-of-the-art car, so we sought to find the best technology available."

The former owner, Vickers, couldn't afford to do that.

"The Spirit, which debuted in 1980, was basically a facelift and [the 1998 Silver] Seraph was based a lot on the architecture of the Shadow," said Leverton. "The underpinnings of those cars were rooted in the 1960s."

Tony Gott, the current Rolls CEO, came up through the ranks as an engineer at Vickers-controlled Rolls. He said the old firm could not keep up with the automotive times.

"It is impossible these days for small manufacturers to produce cars at the level of the new car," said Gott. "There was nothing wrong with the motor car, but was it excellent enough?"

The project team in Munich and the stylists in London finally decided what they wanted in a design. A shape that Leverton described as "well forward at the front; with large-diameter wheels; a large, large bonnet; instrument panel under the cowl; the waistline dropping; the sill line rising as you go back from radiator.

"We wanted the look of sitting back," he said, "a completely different feeling than you get on the S class or 7 series with their forward looking lines, dropping to the front."

The Rolls team also wanted a big surface, big body volume, but a very refined finish.

"We didn't want a vast amount of chrome detailing," said Gott.

They wanted a vertical face and a wide C-pillar, so the rear passenger can't be seen, but can see out.

Clay modeling started in May 1999 at a secret location in central London called "The Holborn Studio" or sometimes "The Bookshop," so named only because it sounded unsuspicious.

"The FIZ [BMW's technical development center in Munich] had plenty of good facilities, but we did the modeling in London," said Gott. "Clearly, this was something that should not be integrated."

Indeed, the Rolls team never worked in the FIZ. The engineering project office was 10 minutes away.

The exterior shape was selected in December 1999. The team chose a design by the then 31-year-old Marek Djordjurc, a Croatian now working at BMW's Designworks studio in California.

Djordjurc's original sketch showed a short front overhang, long bonnet, upright windshield angle and lines dropping to the rear for sitting-back stance.

In 1999, Cameron met with John Blatchley, designer of the Silver Cloud and the Silver Shadow to show him the Djordjurc design. The 87-year-old designer gave his blessing to the shape of the new Rolls.

British designer Charles Coldham did the interior. The inside layout is minimal and uncomplicated.

"The emphasis is on natural materials rather than technology," said Leverton.

The project team also sought to emulate the privacy of the 1947 Silver Wraith. The car had bench seats in the rear and no transmission tunnel. Getting in and out was easy.

"The Silver Wraith is conceptually very difficult from anything on the market today, with a flat floor and rear-hinged door," said Leverton.

That led the team to a crucial decision. "From the beginning we saw the rear-hinged door as being vital," said Leverton.

Coach doors allow the rear passenger to be seated well back and protected by the large C-pillar. Together with the front doors they also form a safety barrier for passengers entering and leaving the car while they are open, according to the Rolls engineers.

"We knew what we had to do," said Leverton. "My vision of the concept of the car was never other than this door. Yet the rear-hinged door has disappeared from modern cars because of legislative requirements."

EU regulators had outlawed coach doors because they can easily catch the wind and fly open.

European safety regulations require that rear-hinged rear doors have an "interdependent mechanical relationship with the front doors."

"What we have been able to do is disable the door at certain speeds and we put that argument forward to the EU," said Leverton.

The last Rolls with a rear-hinged door was the Phantom 6 in early 1970s.

At 5,800mm, the new Rolls is 400mm longer than the Silver Seraph and 127mm taller. The difference is all in the wheelbase. The rear overhang is the same. The front wheels are far forward.

Meanwhile, the edges are sharper and the grille is taller.

The Phantom is powered by a 6.75-liter, naturally-aspirated V-12 derived from the 7-series engine. It has more torque at 1000rpm than the Seraph at peak torque.

"Waftability" is the term Rolls uses for power with little apparent effort. In fact, waftability is critical. The Silver Seraph was criticized for the lack of it.

"Every aspect of the car is oriented toward delivering it," said Leverton. "That leads you to naturally aspirated engine. A turbo needs to be 2,000-3,000 rpm before you get strong performance."

Leverton said less than 10 percent of the new car's parts are shared with other BMWs. There are no major modules or systems interchangeable with the 7 series, for instance.

"The board repeatedly told us, 'The project is yours and it is your responsibility to tell us how that should be,'" he said. "We looked at something based on the 7 series, but simply couldn't. The driving position is different. This has nothing to do with a BMW."

Everything about the Rolls is oriented to comfort.

"The car is a pleasure to drive," said Leverton. "You can drive a car through France to Monte Carlo and it is better than any flight."