-Re-posted from Automobiles de Luxe -

By Gunnar Heinrich

It really isn't everyday that you get to showcase rolling magnificence. There are precious few postwar sedans that are this shapely, this elegant, this refined. And so photogenic!



It startles me to think that when drawing a comparison between the Silver Cloud and ... say... the Silver Spur, there really isn't. Not that there's anything wrong with the Silver Spur, but the Silver Cloud is the penultimate Rolls of the 20th Century.

Perhaps it was something about the fifties that made motoring so imaginatively grand. Think of the rocket fins on all those Cadillacs and the "suicide doors" of all those Continentals.

Well, the Silver Cloud we shot was grand, but what's more it was really, really solid. Everything instrumentation, door handles, wood panels felt - and were - iron-clad.

A Driving Force

On several occasions I had to drive on busy interstates in a car that was a half-century old.

The driverside rearview mirror was next to useless and the passenger side reflector didn't even exist. Wind noise found its way into the cabin once we passed 50 mph and the cabin creaked like a wooden yacht under way. But that, friends, was the only indication of speed.

The Silver Cloud had this amazing, astounding, perplexing ability to totally disguise speed. I think it might've had something to do with A) the near-SUV loft of driver's seating position and B) the 300 yards - er - I mean seven feet of bonnet that separated front occupants from the Spirit of Ecstasy.

Turning the steering was like dialing in the helm of a great ship. You adjusted course and... then the ship sailed to it.

The (pre-war era) straight six was strong enough to tote the 4,500 + lbs Cloud around at 70 mph for the range of the 300 mile tank. However, 70 really was where the car wanted to be at cruise.

Any faster, perhaps to the 106 mph top speed, would have caused a half-century old engine to strain and that's not what I was about to test.

More Strain on G than on Cloud

But speaking of strain, the Silver Cloud managed two days worth of stop and go, city style driving. The car was a real tank. The engine started with next to no crank time. The good to go attitude was refreshing.

I, of course, in addition to being show host played the oftentimes grating role of super anal pseudo-owner.

It was like I was manager for the star actress; making sure that she got back to her trailer at regular intervals for rest and wary of exploitation by the cameramen.

The Rolls did catch eyes wherever we went. And there were people who did ask me if I was the part of some wedding procession. Kind of somber to think that that's the Silver Cloud's place nowadays.

The weather held for us, which was a Godsend. It poured the day after. The owner had said - rightly - that he wouldn't want the car driven in the rain. And it really should be said that camera gear doesn't work so well in the wet, either.

Studio Sequence

Mad props to Jan Hering, the magician.

Jan transformed a concrete walled garage into a veritable studio that appeared as though the car were being shot on a dark set. It took us a full day and a half to set up the background, diffusion, and lamps in such a way to show of the white sedan in that subtle creamy light that you see in the video.

The car is full of reflective surface which presented all kinds of logistical challenges for positioning the camera in such a way that it couldn't be seen in all that chrome.

On the day of the studio shoot, we wrapped things up at around 2AM the next morning.

At 6AM, yours truly arose to do the stand-ups on location(s). Mercifully, the public at large cooperated with us. Aside from the random person taking a photograph or asking us technical questions like "what year?" or "where's the wedding?" events went smoothly.

That day ended at around 8PM with the Rolls returned to happy owner.

And, man, it was so hard leaving her. If ever there was an endorsement for the longevity and durability of a cared-for automobile, this Silver Cloud was it in spades.

Such a magnificent car.