One thing that I’ve learned about vintage cars is that no matter how expensive or luxurious they were when new, many of them have been hacked up, modified, and painted different colors over the years. Nothing is sacred—at any dollar amount. Rolls-Royces are no exception, not even the one-off 1925/1934 Rolls-Royce Phantom I “Round Door.”
Why does the Round Door have two model years? If you read my piece about it back in June, you’ll know that it’s because the 1925 Phantom I started life with a Cabriolet body by the coachbuilders at Hooper & Co. After it was purchased by the the Raja of Nanpara in India, it changed hands once again. In 1934, the new owner sent the Rolls to Jonckheere in Belgium for a custom body with a sloping radiator grille cover, dual sunroofs, semicircular fender skirts, louvered rear end, side-hinged trunk cover with a prominent fin and—you guessed it—round doors. The car is currently housed in “The Vault” at the Petersen Automotive Museum, wearing a black finish over a red leather interior.
The Round Door hasn’t always been that way, though. It’s had several owners in different continents over the last century and who-knows-how-many color changes. According to the Petersen’s short history of the vehicle, “Once thought to have been owned by the Duke of Windsor, the concours-winning car then passed through the hands of several other owners before being discovered in New Jersey in the early-1950s in near derelict condition. Max Obie later acquired the unusual Rolls-Royce, had it painted gold, and charged curious individuals one dollar to enter a special enclosure to look at the car.”
Apparently, in the 1980s, the Round Door was painted another color. I discovered this on the America’s Packard Museum website, of all places. The photos sourced from the museum’s Automobile Quarterly collection date back to 1989 and show the distinctive 1-of-1 creation in all white, complete with wide whitewalls.
This goes to show how much color can change the personality of a car. Black-over-red makes the Round Door look like the vehicle the main villain in an Ian Fleming James Bond novel would drive (and probably use to bash another vehicle off the road, sending its occupants to their deaths). In white, the Round Door brings to mind the hero’s car in a fantasy action/adventure film set in a utopian future.
With its undeniable presence and dramatic lines, the Rolls-Royce Phantom I Round Door would probably look great in any color, but tell me your answer to this question in the Comments section below: Does it look better in black or white?
