In 1980, after 15 years in production, Rolls-Royce replaced the Silver Shadow II with the new Silver Spirit. While the Spirit retained the 6.75-litre V8 engine and Citroen-derived hydraulic ride control and high-pressure braking systems of the Shadow, it was a completely redesigned car meant to carry Rolls-Royce into a new era with increased attention paid to safety and emissions.
The exterior styling was lower, wider, and longer than before, yet with the same understated elegance that made it undeniably a Crewe product. As with the Silver Shadow and its stretched Wraith II counterpart before it, the extended wheelbase version was sold as a separate model known as the Silver Spur. The factory produced a handful of highly exclusive stretch-wheelbase touring limousines, and there were also a few cars fettled for private clients by Park Ward and Hooper, while several other firms converted standard cars into limousines, convertibles, and more.
The 1987 Silver Spur shown here is understood to have been opened up and stretched configuration early in its life. The work was probably done by Italian coachbuilder Autoconstruzione S.D. Torino, which performed similar conversions on various Bentley Mulsannes. According to the Rolls-Royce Foundation this car was originally finished in acrylic white over blue hides and was sold new in South Florida. It spent its early years in the Miami area, where a bright white, stretched, convertible Rolls-Royce limousine surely attracted the attention its owner desired. Tasteful…
Check out the pictures and you can see immediately that this was a car built and converted in the eighties, with its rocker switches and a TV that's deeper than it is wide – there's no touch-screen control here!
Dealer service records do not indicate precisely when the conversion took place but in the mid-1990s it changed hands and the new owner invested in a respray of the car, opting for the more understated metallic blue shown in the pictures.
- This Rolls-Royce Silver Spur was sold by Hyman Ltd, to whom thanks are due for allowing their pictures to be used to illustrate this article.
“It spent its early years in the Miami area, where a bright white, stretched, convertible Rolls-Royce limousine surely attracted the attention its owner desired.”
An English version of ‘Miami Vice’ LOL