This Old Rolls-Royce Limo Won’t Cost You A Tenth The Price Of A New One

Want to put yourself behind the wheel of a Rolls-Royce limousine? (Or more appropriately, in the back of one?) You’re looking at a good $400k for a new Ghost, or about $500k for a Phantom. More for the extended-wheelbase versions. If that’s too rich for your blood, though, you could always look to the second-hand market.

That’s where we found this stretched Rolls limousine for sale at a far more palatable €25,500 (or about $31,500 at current exchange rates).

The 1984 model is one of only 37 said to exist. Based on the first-generation Silver Spur that Rolls-Royce built in the Eighties, it was stretched to its ample proportions and spent most of its life chauffeuring the rich and famous in the UK. It was imported to the Netherlands (where it’s currently listed for sale) in 2010. With 133,370 miles (214,638 kilometers) on the odometer, you can rest assured it’s been properly broken in by now.

It packs that long-serving (and virtually bulletproof) 6.75-liter V8 engine – but we wouldn’t count on it getting anywhere in a hurry. Not like its successor in the latest Phantom, which produces 563 horsepower (420 kW) and 664 lb-ft (900 Nm) of torque. That’ll reach 62 miles per hour (100 km/h) in 5.3 seconds (5.4 for the long-wheelbase version) and top out at an electrically limited 155 mph (250 km/h).

Put another way, the Silver Spur was Rolls’ counterpart to the Bentley Mulsanne of its day. The new Mulsanne is still driven by the same essential engine (albeit heavily revised and twin-turbocharged), but in Speed spec offers 530 hp (395 kW) and 811 lb-ft (1,100 Nm) to reach 62 in 4.8 seconds and top out at 190 mph (306 km/h). Even the Flying Spur’s specs will show up this one’s.

Such is the state of progress, even at automakers as old-school as Rolls-Royce and Bentley. Still, if it’s space and prestige you’re after (and not performance or modernity), it’s hard to argue with the price. That $31k wouldn’t even get you into a base-spec new BMW 3 Series these days.