Special Rolls-Royce Phantom marks 60 years of Bond Goldfinger

Rolls-Royce has brought James Bond nemesis Goldfinger’s Phantom III into the modern era with a special one-off to celebrate 60 years since the iconic film hit cinemas.

Created for a UK-based client – and avid Bond fan – as part of a three-and-a-half-year project, the one-of-one and fully driveable Phantom Goldfinger gives today’s Phantom VIII a 1937 makeover with “some of the most extensively engineered and hand-crafted features ever produced”, Rolls-Royce said.

Aside from the famous two-tone paint, all of the special features are found inside, from an 18-carat solid gold bar (cut in the shape of a Phantom Speedform) in the centre console to a gold golf putter fitted to the boot lid – a reference to Bond’s first encounter with Auric Goldfinger at Stoke Park in the film. 

More touches can be found throughout, such as a pull-out picnic table with a map of Fort Knox engraved in 22-carat gold inlay, and the Starlight Headliner matching the constellation that would have been visible above the Furka Pass during filming in 1964.

Elsewhere, at the request of the client, the 007 logo is projected into the boot whenever the lid is open. The car also features two red, blue, green and yellow harlequin-patterned umbrellas fitted into the rear doors, in a nod to the design used by Goldfinger in the Stoke Park scene.

“It could have just been a black and yellow car that was made to look like the original – but we wanted to do more,” said Nick Rhodes, lead Rolls-Royce Bespoke designer on the project.

“We wanted to make it a sort of evolution of the original but also tell the story of the film.”

One suggestion was to “just make everything gold” but Rhodes added: “We wanted to make it more sophisticated than that.”

He said hiding the “easter eggs”, such as the map of the Furka Pass engraved onto the dashboard gallery, “really tells that story a bit more”.

Rhodes referenced the special Spirit of Ecstasy finish as a nod to the special work undertaken on the car. The mascot appears to be made of solid gold but is plated silver – this is in reference to Goldfinger trying to smuggle gold in the body panels of his Phantom. Since it is not possible to silver-plate gold, specialists used a solid silver Spirit of Ecstasy and plated it with 18-carat gold to achieve the ‘gold reveal’ effect.

“We could have just put a gold [mascot] on there,” said Rhodes, “but enhancing that and telling that story a bit more really enhances the role of the car. It’s not something you notice until somebody tells you.”