“This is gold, Mr. Bond. All my life, I’ve been in love with its colour, its brilliance, its divine heaviness.” Auric Goldfinger uttered those words in 1964, shortly before telling agent 007—who was strapped down and about to be done in by a laser beam—that he expected him to die.
Six decades on, Rolls-Royce has paid tribute to the Goldfinger movie with a one-off Phantom suitable for the evil mastermind himself. Inspired by the vintage Phantom III driven by Oddjob, Auric Goldfinger’s diminutive chauffeur, and accessorized with vast quantities of real gold, this could now be the ultimate Bond car.
The plot of Goldfinger hinges on its eponymous villain, who plans to detonate a nuclear device inside Fort Knox, making the $15 billion gold reserves of the United States radioactive for 58 years, subsequently increasing the value of his own gold ten-fold as a result.
Key to this dastardly scheme, codenamed Operation Grand Slam, is a 1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom III Sedanca de Ville, with coachwork made from solid 18-carat gold (at least in the movie). Goldfinger uses it to smuggle bullion out of England, crossing the famous Furka Pass in Switzerland to reach his Auric Enterprises smelting plant, where the body panels will be melted down.
According to Nick Rhodes, lead designer at Rolls-Royce’s Bespoke division, the Phantom Goldfinger has been three years in the making. “We approached EON Productions, which owns the Phantom III featured in the film, with a view to creating something special to mark the 60th anniversary of the film,” says Rhodes. “The original car was on display in Brussels, where we were able to examine it in detail. However, we didn’t want to simply create a copy. This Phantom is very much a modern interpretation.”
Rhodes says the most challenging part of the project was the two-tone paintwork. Its vibrant yellow was precisely matched to the 1937 Phantom, with a contrasting black draped over the upper surfaces of the car. The 21-inch disc wheels are also finished in black, with silver “floating” hubcaps that remain vertical at all times.
Disappointingly, the new Phantom’s coachwork isn’t made from solid gold, which rules out any smuggling missions to Switzerland. However, the car’s Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament has been cleverly modified to give what Rhodes calls a “gold reveal” effect. “It isn’t possible to silver-plate gold,” the designer explains, “so we used solid silver and partially plated it with 18-carat gold.” The result is a unique piece of automotive jewelry.
There’s more of Auric Goldfinger’s favorite precious metal inside the Phantom, including a gold finish on the air vents, organ stops, and speaker grilles, plus sill tread plates that resemble gold bars. The glove-box lid is debossed with the famous movie quote cited at the outset here, while the walnut picnic tables are inlaid with a (fictional) map of Fort Knox in 22-carat gold.
The Rolls-Royce’s dashboard gallery features a hand-drawn isoline map of the Furka Pass, where 007 follows Goldfinger to his mountain lair. The artwork required 10 prototypes to get right, and is made from stainless steel that was darkened using a process called physical vapor deposition, with contour lines engraved into the bright metal beneath. The centrepiece of the gallery is an analog clock, inspired by the iconic gun-barrel sequence seen in the opening credits of every Bond movie.
A surprise is also hidden in the car’s centre console: a secret vault containing an illuminated 18-carat gold bar, which is shaped as a stylized speedform of the Phantom. Overhead, Rolls-Royce’s now-familiar Starlight Headliner replicates the night sky over the Furka Pass on July 11, 1964—the final day of filming in Switzerland—with a total of 719 hand-placed fiber-optic gold stars.
Our encounter with the Phantom Goldfinger takes place at Stoke Park in Buckinghamshire, England, the country estate where Bond first meets his nemesis and challenges him to a game of golf. Naturally, Goldfinger uses a gold putter, just like the one Rhodes and his team have mounted inside the boot lid of this Rolls-Royce. Later in the movie, Bond hides a tracking device from Q Branch on the Phantom III, an effect replicated by a puddle light that projects the 007 logo into the boot floor whenever the lid is open.
The Phantom Series II is mechanically stock, meaning it has a 571 hp, 6.75-liter V-12 that whisks it from zero to 60 mph in around 5.5 seconds. Rhodes says the car’s British purchaser was “over the moon” with the results of this truly bespoke commission. Nonetheless, they did add a finishing touch: the UK licence plate AU 1—as worn by the Rolls-Royce in the movie and a subtle reference to the chemical symbol for gold in the periodic table. Auric Goldfinger would surely approve.
Photography: Rolls-Royce Motor Cars
