In pictures: Rolls-Royce's 'Pantheon' grille - Autofocus
Rolls-Royce was keen on establishing itself as the manufacturer of the world’s best automobiles from the start, and the fit and finish of the grilles on their early cars reflects that—each was assembled and polished by hand, the parts lined up by... When Rolls-Royce’s “New Phantom,” later known as the ‘Phantom I,’ made its debut in 1925, it did so wearing the vertical-vane ‘Pantheon’ grille, ‘RR’ badge and ‘Spirit of Ecstasy’ hood ornament that together make up the iconic grille. “I think it wouldn’t be a Rolls-Royce without it. ”. In 1929, the second-generation Phantom II carried on with essentially the same grille as the Phantom, though it was now pushed forward, along with the engine, thanks to room freed up by the... bowed in 1936, the grille was already becoming a veritable icon, and so the company left it largely untouched, though they started making it out of a prototypical stainless steel instead of nickel-steel. It was this generation, too, that first saw coachbuilders – the firms hired to handbuild the bodies for most Rolls-Royces – try to put their own touches on the grille. By 1968, when the sixth-gen Phantom VI came out, the Rolls-Royce grille had become so well-known it began spawning. Source: www.autofocus.ca
