Launched in 2003, Rolls-Royce’s flagship model, the Phantom, received its first facelift last year. That should be enough for a few more years, as the BMW-owned luxury car manufacturer doesn’t plan to offer a redesigned Phantom until around 2020.
The 2012 update brought improvements like subtle styling tweaks, updated electronics and an eight-speed automatic transmission with a new rear differential, and these will probably be the last major changes before a new generation model appears, given the extended period between the Phantom’s introduction and mid-cycle facelift.
Leftlanenews has learned from Richard Carter, director of Rolls-Royce Global Communications, that the Phantom has a planned lifecycle of 17 years. That’s way more than the “life expectancy” of an average car (8-10 years), but then again, the Phantom is anything but average. Carter said that when a customer pays $500,000 for a new Phantom, he or she doesn’t want the car to be outdated in just a few years’ time.
Therefore, if you have a Phantom, don’t worry, you still have 6-7 years before it’s replaced and you may want to think about trading it in for the new model. The next-generation Phantom is a mystery so far, but rumor has it that the Phantom family may switch to a platform derived from the BMW 7-Series, just like the Ghost.
By Dan Mihalascu
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