There is no shortage of Rolls-Royces with low mileages out there, but that doesn't mean they are better prospects than the ones that have lived life a little. And here's one that has lived life a lot - a Silver Seraph that has managed to rack up the impressive total of 171,000 miles.
Although the market tends to fetishise them, minimal odometer scores aren't necessarily proof of respectful care. That's especially true for large, luxury limousines. Many years ago I watched a late-70s Silver Shadow go through the sort of car auction where unwanted part-exes were sent to meet the most cynical end of the motor trade, plus a smattering of starry-eyed dreamers.
The Roller shone like a diamond in a litter tray, leagues removed from the knackered Montegos and Cavaliers that surrounded it. While stunning from the other side of the hall, a closer inspection explained its presence, with paintwork practically polished through, crusty arches and rear trim showing wear more in keeping with a life-expired minicab. The car's recent use as a low-rent bridal barge couldn't have been more obvious if the Spirit of Ecstasy had still been carrying a white ribbon. Despite a lowish mileage it had an obviously sick transmission and rolled out of the ring trailing a pall of blue smoke.
The advert for this week's Pill gives no clue how it has managed to accumulate such a serious mileage, and it may well have encountered some confetti in its time. Yet it has clearly also been given a huge amount of love and care to have travelled so far and to still look so fresh; the vendor's promise of fantastic condition doesn't seem OTT on the basis of the visual evidence.
Although the Silver Seraph is now regarded as an evolutionary dead end for Rolls-Royce, it was launched with high hopes. This was when the company was still one with Bentley, both under the parentage of Vickers. The mostly-arms conglomerate had been persuaded to pony up an unprecedented sum to develop both the Seraph and closely related Arnage, largely in the hope of persuading a larger carmaker to take the upmarket brands off its hands. In that, it ended up being a bit too successful.
Officially unveiled at the 1998 Geneva motor show, with a presentation that included a dancer dressed as the Spirit of Ecstasy, the Silver Seraph looked every inch the traditional Roller, complete with the brand's odd period trademark of white-wall tyres. The close relationwith the Arnage was obvious with their shared bodywork, but both were given very different characters. Principally that came from the choice of two different BMW V12s, the Bentley getting a twin-turbocharged 4.4-litre M62 and the Seraph a naturally-aspirated 5.4-litre M73. This made 326hp, although the company still refused to quote such vulgar statistics at the time, and made it the first factory-built Rolls-Royce packing a 12-cylinder engine since the Phantom III.
In terms of engineering, it was a huge leap forwards over the Silver Spirit/ Spur that it effectively replaced. The Seraph's structure was far stiffer, its noise insulation snugger and its refinement helped further by the fitment of adaptive ride control and a silky five-speed autobox. The V12 didn't have much in the way of low-down guts - the maximum 361lb ft arrived at 3900rpm - but it was supremely smooth. While some contemporary reviewers reckoned the engine was a little noisy for a Rolls-Royce - as in, they could hear it working - it was supremely wafty under the sort of gentle use that the car encouraged.
But there's no accounting for taste, and by the time the Seraph was launched this was definitely shifting. Rolls-Royce saloons had been much more popular than their Bentley equivalents since the 1950s, but as Bentleys got faster and more characterful, so that was reversing. A trend intensified when the early Arnage's BMW motor was replaced by an older tech (but more muscular) twin-turbo pushrod V8.
The Seraph also got tangled in what became the soap opera of Vickers' sale of its automotive brands. The close collaboration with BMW had been based around a clear belief that it would be the one to take control of both Rolls and Bentley, but at the last minute Volkswagen Group swept in with a better offer and nabbed the pair. BMW retaliated by separately licensing rights to use the Rolls-Royce brand from Rolls-Royce Holdings, the ultimate parent of the engineering group and aero engine maker. Munich also threatened to cut off parts supply, which would have stopped everything. Eventually a compromise was agreed - VW would keep Bentley, BMW would get Rolls-Royce and also keep supplying components until 2003.
The deal also meant that Volkswagen-owned Bentley would carry on making and selling Rolls-Royce models for four more years, but it's fair to say that the corporate heart wasn't in pushing a brand it would soon lose control of. Fewer than 300 Silver Seraphs were sold in the UK before it quietly died at the end of 2002 - barely a quarter of the total of Arnages moved in the same period. When the much bigger and more imposing BMW-engineered Phantom VII arrived in 2003 the Seraph was pretty much forgotten, seemingly relegated to the footnotes of the corporate history.
Yet thanks to the comedy double act of Supply and Demand, the Silver Seraph's scarcity has actually worked in its favour, especially as the growing success of BMW-era Rolls-Royce has increased interest in the brand. Seraph values never fell as far as those of the Arnage, and actually started to modestly increase a few years ago. It is possible to get into one for less than the £29,950 that the vendor of our Pill is asking, but the base of the market heading into lockdown seems to be around £25,000 - a substantial premium over cars like the £14,000 Arnage Red Label that we Pill'd back in January.
It's not hard to pick rational holes in that disparity - the Arnage was much more popular in period for good reason and feels like a more PH choice now. But there is some logic behind it. If you want a modernish Rolls-Royce but can't spring for a Phantom the Silver Seraph does offer a much more affordable way behind the velvet rope of R-R ownership, while a definite step up from a Shadow or Dawn. Our Pill has an appropriate abundance of magnolia hide and walnut, including the must-have rear picnic tables, and looks much better loved than the 150,000 mile Phantom we featured last November, and is being offered for almost
With hidden plates we put Enzo the PH hamster onto research, and he dug up a registration that allowed a peek at the MOT history. This reports minimal use in recent years after several years of accumulating serious mileages - close to 20,000 a year between 2008 and 2011. It also seems to have had an odometer swap or reset, with several years of recorded mileage in the low-20s. But the 171,000 claimed by the dealer does look to be the honest, combined tally.
Enzo also reports that the advert is marked as 'sold' on one part of the database, but not on another - and as the advert is still visible we decided to share it here. If it has gone the dealer has another three Silver Seraphs available, all of which are being offered with the promised reassurance of a two year warranty. Who feels like a high roller?
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