“Our association with the Peninsula hotel is a long and happy one. The new fleet replaces five cars which THE SPIRIT
have completed around 130,000 miles each and are
THE SPIRIT
still in satisfactory condition. They will not be scrapped but relocated to other hotels in the group”
“A green Rolls-Royce? There can’t be that many in Hong Kong…”
Factory information sent to Rolls-Royce and Bentley distributors in 1987
So said 007 (Roger Moore) to Mary Goodnight (Brit Ekland) in The Man With The Golden Gun as he searched for the owner of AU 603 The car Bond was after back in 1974 turned out to be one of The Peninsula hotel’s courtesy fleet of nine Brewster Green Silver Shadows, referred to by the hotel as being painted “Peninsula Green”. Today the hotel runs a stable of 14 similarly-coloured Phantoms, the eighth such fleet it has commissioned over the years including nine Silver Spur IIIs in 1994, making 69 cars in all. Plus the 1934 Phantom II awarded Most Desirable Car at the Hong Kong Classic Car Show. Marketing director of the Car Division, John Craig, remembers meeting Chris Blake, the executive of Dodwell Motors of Hong Kong, who had come to Crewe in 1971 to finalise an order for nine Silver Shadows in a special colour scheme for The Peninsula hotel. The hotel wanted eight cars for daily use with the promise that the dealer would keep a ninth identical model as a loan car for when any of the others went in for service. This was, at the time, the largest single order for one model in the company’s history. A further requirement was that the cars should be built to Australian specification 16
Issue 2 • SUMMER 2015
because The Peninsula did not want them to remain on the Hong Kong market when the time came to replace them. Because the Rolls-Royce was an untried car for the hotel at the time, John Craig said the original fleet was bought on a three-year lease. During this time they each covered 100,000 miles before being sent to Australia. The hotel’s experiences with them must have been good, though, because all the future deals were on an outright purchase basis, he remembered. Before Rolls-Royce, The Peninsula did not treat its residents to such luxury. “We used Ford Fairlanes – righthand drive, very usable cars with large luggage racks – but they weren’t the most elegant,” says Sir Michael Kadoorie, chairman of the Peninsula’s parent company, Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels. Four years after its original Silver Shadow order, The Peninsula renewed its allegiance to Ford and replaced its fleet with Lincoln Continentals. But this proved to be a short-lived arrangement and two years later the hotel placed a new order for eight more Silver Shadows.
In 1980, the fleet was again replaced as yet another large order was placed for nine Silver Shadow IIs. This order, reputedly worth around HK $4.4 million, was a third consecutive record deal. These cars had seven years and 130,000 miles of hard use until being replaced in 1987 by eight Brewster Green Silver Spirits worth £994,000. At that time, this was the largest value order Rolls-Royce had ever received. Then, in 1994, came the nine Silver Spur IIIs. The Rolls-Royce Silver Spur IIIs were reputed to have done up to 400,000 miles by the time they were replaced by Phantoms in 2007. “The deal was done to the mutual benefit of both companies” for an undisclosed price said Sir Michael Kadoorie but it is believed that the terms included Rolls-Royce buying back the previous fleet of road-weary Silver Spurs.
THE MAGAZINE OF THE ROLLS-ROYCE ENTHUSIASTS’ CLUB SZ REGISTER
THE PENINSULA’S FLEET OF BESPOKE PHANTOMS The Peninsula’s 14 Rolls-Royce Phantoms, each of which covers about 700 miles a week, have 39 modifications compared with the standard model. “The order went from conversation to requirements to engineering to build in about 12 weeks,” said Ian Robertson, chairman of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. “We began designing the cars in April 2007 and building them in June.” Special interior features requested by the hotel include a box beneath the rear seat that chills wet towels. And four fixed grab handles have replaced the flexible leather straps. Additional luggage space was achieved by some rewiring and the relocation of the battery and the air suspension compressor.
On a Peninsula Phantom’s steering wheel, in place of the usual navigation control, is a button labelled “Auto P.” This automatically applies the brakes whenever the car is stationary rather like the hill-hold function in a BMW 7 Series. It is a useful feature when negotiating Hong Kong’s many steep hills or garage exits. The rear heater and air-conditioning controls were moved from the centre console to the rear arm rests and the cars have backlighting for the door handles and various switches to make them easier to use in the dark. Other enhancements include the 420-watt, 15-speaker audio system and the 12-inch television monitors mounted behind the front seats.
Ian Robertson travelled to Hong Kong from Goodwood when the new Phantom fleet was delivered and presented the hotel’s owner with a burr walnut box containing the 14 electronic key fobs. The extended wheelbase Phantoms join two MINI Cooper S Clubmans, also painted the signature Peninsula Brewster Green and customised with refrigerators, iPod connections and more. Rooms at The Peninsula start at HK $4080 (£350) per night and the 22-mile trip from the airport in a Phantom costs HK $1600 (£135) oneway or HK $2900 (£245) for the round trip. The cars and chauffeur can also be hired by the hour for HK $1600 (£135) with a minimum two-hour booking.
THE MAGAZINE OF THE ROLLS-ROYCE ENTHUSIASTS’ CLUB SZ REGISTER
SUMMER 2015 • Issue 2 17