Rolls Royce’s quality and their craftsmanship have just been proven by a 1928 Rolls-Royce Phantom I. It has covered 2.75 lakh kilometres and is still running in mint condition. The vehicle was owned by late M. Allen Swift of West Hartford, Connecticut.
He owned this Phantom for 77 years, this helped him enter the Rolls-Royce history books because he has the longest ownership experience of owning a Rolls Royce. The luxury manufacturer presented Allen a crystal Spirit of Ecstasy as a recognition.
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Allen Swift was born in 1903 which helped him grow through the rising automobile industry. Due to this, he was fascinated by the automobiles and developed a keen interest in them. He was 24 when he got his first car which was a 1917 Franklin. His second car was a Marmon. Then he got the Rolls on his 26th birthday as a present from his father for staying with the family business. This enabled Allen’s younger brothers to continue with their college educations. His father gave liberty to him to choose any car he would like. Impressed by the rigorous testing that the Springfield plant of Rolls Royce did with its cars, He settled for the Rolls Royce as he explains himself to the Springfield Museums in a 2003 interview.
“Someone had advised me to go to the Springfield plant, I went all through it and watched them making the parts. It reinforced my idea that it was well made. I saw all the ways they tested the cars. Every engine was tested. Then when they got the engine finished, they set it up on a concrete block and ran it a specified number of times and a specified number of hours.”
“Someone would come around periodically with a stethoscope and listen to it and so forth. Then it was completely dismantled and checked and reassembled and put back in to the chassis. Then a bench was mounted on the chassis, and a test driver drove it 200 miles before it was released.”
He chose Piccadilly body finished in dual-tone Green because there were not many Green cars. This also made his car look unique. The chassis of Allen’s Phantom I was made by the Brewster & Co. Coachworks, NY which was a well-known chassis maker back in the day.
Although the 1928 Phantom never broke down, it had a full-body restoration and engine rebuild in 1988. The Rolls only required periodic oil changes and regular maintenance. Some of the maintenance work was done by Allen himself!
Just 2 months before dying, Allen decided to donate his beloved Rolls Royce to the Springfield Museums. He also donated $1,000,000 so that the museum can take care of his car, buy more land and expand its collection of other cars and Indian motorcycles.
Rolls Royce is still making the Phantom and it is known for its luxurious offering. Rolls Royce claims that Phantom has the quietest cabin of any car and they have used double-laminated windows and 130 kgs of sound insulation to cut out any noise from the external environment. It is powered by a twin-turbo 6.75-litre V12 petrol engine that churns out 571 PS of max power and a massive 900 Nm of peak torque. It weighs over 2.6-tonnes but can still hit 100 kmph in just 5.4 seconds. Rolls Royce Phantom is priced at Rs. 9 Crore ex-showroom and the Extended Wheelbase variant will set you back by Rs. 11 Crores ex-showroom.
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The post He owned a Rolls Royce for 77 years, 2.75 lakh kms without a single breakdown! first appeared on Cartoq.