Rolls-Royce Silver Spur Revisited
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img Automobiles De Luxe ::: Rolls-Royce Silver Spur
RECENTLY, yours was reacquainted with an old friend – a 1988 banker’s grey over black Rolls-Royce Silver Spur with black Everflex roof. Naturally with reunions come the obligatory photo ops and this occasion with the Silver Spur was no exception.
You can almost mistake Connecticut for England in these shots – apart of course from the blasted phone poles. Needless to say, a true Royce is at home in any environ – including New England.
It’s easy to love this car.
That said, with any enduring relationship there are trifling points that arise only to lightly test the bonds.
For example, in 1988 you could safely buy two Mercedes-Benz 420SELs for the price of one Silver Spur. In almost every respect save for the obvious – the Royce’s penultimate paint finish, leather, and wood plus larger rear cabin – the W126 S-Class was the superior car. Indeed, the Austrian designer who penned this generation Rolls owes much to Bruno Sacco’s team as the two sedans look very similar.
Yet despite this grand fiscal disparity- the price of indulgent rarity we’ll call it – the Silver Spur lacks a few necessities that were standard issue in its day.
Heated seats? Nope.
Rear air vents? Uncheck (unseemly for such a limo).
Power adjustable rear seats? Nein.
And try as I might on that particularly misty day – I couldn’t find a defogger switch for the rear windscreen (Royce experts please correct).
Still this being a Mark II generation Spur, we do have the benefit of ABS (important for a car this heavy) and a self-leveling suspension system that doesn’t so much maintain”level” as it simply ensures that at all times you feel like your driving on top of a tall, fluffy cushion.
What’s most remarkable and a testament to this Royce’s enduring quality is that now in its third decade, the Silver Spur still remains a luxurious island of calm amidst an ever more frantic world.
About the Author: Gunnar Heinrich is publisher of Automobiles De Luxe online and is executive producer of the Automobiles De Luxe Television series on PBS member station CPTV.
Julian | Aug 24, 2010 | Reply
Gunnar,
Well written article on one of the last real Rolls-Royces. I also really liked the video you did on this particular car.
May I, however, point out a few little errors in your text? Firstly, this is a series I Silver Spur and not a series II. The Silver Spur II was introduced in 1989 and came with heated front seats and electrically adjustable rear seats as standard. The rear air vents were not introduced until 1995 (New Silver Spur).
A separate swith for rear window demisting was never fitted to these cars as the rear window heating element would automatically be switched on as soon as the air conditioning system was switched to the “defrost” setting.
Regards,
Julian