In-Motion Classic: Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith II – Classic Luxury on the Way to Work

“You know, while I was driving to work, I saw a Rolls-Royce” said my wife few days back. “It might still be on the dash-cam, no?” Well, yes, it still might be. “But it was new, so it might not be interesting for this CC website of yours” (hmm…).

I’ll take a look. Preferably sooner than later, as the dash-cam runs over old files while recording, for lack of space on the SD card. What I found was indeed new, certainly by Rolls-Royce standards.

 

Not that a new (of recent years) RR is such a common sight in Israel. In fact, there’s no official import of the brand and the few cars that arrived here were imported privately. And that’s what I was expecting to see in the video. Instead, a nice surprise was unveiled before my eyes:

 

At first I thought I’ve failed. More than ten years with my wife and still she can’t see the difference between a new and an old car? But than she explained she meant that this classic RR had “new” license-plates, without the usual “Collectible Vehicle” mark that most classic car owners register their cars to. If you recall, cars with this mark cannot drive on weekdays between 7:00 to 9:00 AM.

As you can clearly see the time in the video, this owner may have decided he’d be better off without it and drive his RR to work, which to me is crazy on so many levels; his taxes are much higher than his compatriots, he has to go through a MOT test twice a year instead of once, not to mention the obvious- would you drive your classic Rolls-Royce to work, and in this start-stop rush hour traffic?

My knowledge of RRs is lacking, to say the least, but I managed to define it as a Silver Wraith II which, starting from 1976, was the LWB version of the Silver Shadow II. The main difference, besides the wheelbase, was the rear smaller “opera” window. See an example of a regular window on the Shadow II below:

As with many classic cars previously not available in Israel (when new), Rolls-Royce are now being imported freely and it’s not uncommon to see at least one RR, usually a Silver Shadow II (cheapest of the bunch?) in classic car meetings. Time now to display some photos I shot at various meetings. First two are of another Silver Wraith II:

As you can see, RRs can be yet newer… This Silver Spirit is also lacking the “Collectible Vehicle” mark.

I’ll end with two very similar Silver Shadow IIs- they look almost identical, but are not the same car. And sporting a typical Seventies color: