1979 Rolls Royce Silver Wraith Ii Base Sedan 4-door 6.7l (21,500miles)rare on 2040-cars

Auto blog

This is the very last Rolls-Royce Phantom VII

Rolls-Royce built its very last Phantom VII today. The model was first introduced in 2003 and ends with this one-of-a-kind long-wheelbase model that will go to the unnamed Rolls-Royce collector who commissioned it. The car itself is themed around 1930s-era ships, which is in turn a nod to the era of the first Phantom I, launched in 1925. Immediately upon looking at the car's "Blue Velvet" paint scheme, you can see the oceanic influence. The color is accompanied by coach lines with a ship motif, and the tires have white lines to complement it. Inside, the car features the beautiful marquetry wood trim the brand has become known for. The dashboard shows a '30s-era ship with a map of North America and Europe in the background. Further maritime highlights include dash clocks modeled after ship radios, and embroidery on the "Powder Blue" leather that mimics the look of ocean waves. The front dash clock has a movable bezel for different time zones, and Rolls-Royce says the carpeting has been cut to look like a ship's wake. While this generation of the Phantom is at an end, it's by no means the end of the line for the name. We've seen prototypes of the Phantom VIII running around, and Rolls-Royce has openly said that a successor is coming. We expect the new generation will only be available in short- and long-wheelbase sedans to start, and will probably be revealed sometime this year, perhaps as soon as the Geneva Show in March, or as late as the Pebble Beach Concours in August. Related Video:

The UK votes for Brexit and it will impact automakers

It's the first morning after the United Kingdom voted for what's become known as Brexit – that is, to leave the European Union and its tariff-free internal market. Now begins a two-year process in which the UK will have to negotiate with the rest of the EU trading bloc, which is its largest export market, about many things. One of them may be tariffs, and that could severely impact any automaker that builds cars in the UK. This doesn't just mean companies that you think of as British, like Mini and Jaguar. Both of those automakers are owned by foreign companies, incidentally. Mini and Rolls-Royce are owned by BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover by Tata Motors of India, and Bentley by the VW Group. Many other automakers produce cars in the UK for sale within that country and also export to the EU. Tariffs could damage the profits of each of these companies, and perhaps cause them to shift manufacturing out of the UK, significantly damaging the country's resurgent manufacturing industry. Autonews Europe dug up some interesting numbers on that last point. Nissan, the country's second-largest auto producer, builds 475k or so cars in the UK but the vast majority are sent abroad. Toyota built 190k cars last year in Britain, of which 75 percent went to the EU and just 10 percent were sold in the country. Investors are skittish at the news. The value of the pound sterling has plummeted by 8 percent as of this writing, at one point yesterday reaching levels not seen since 1985. Shares at Tata Motors, which counts Jaguar and Land Rover as bright jewels in its portfolio, were off by nearly 12 percent according to Autonews Europe. So what happens next? No one's terribly sure, although the feeling seems to be that the jilted EU will impost tariffs of up to 10 percent on UK exports. It's likely that the UK will reciprocate, and thus it'll be more expensive to buy a European-made car in the UK. Both situations will likely negatively affect the country, as both production of new cars and sales to UK consumers will both fall. Evercore Automotive Research figures the combined damage will be roughly $9b in lost profits to automakers, and an as-of-yet unquantified impact on auto production jobs. Perhaps the EU's leaders in Brussels will be in a better mood in two years, and the process won't devolve into a trade war. In the immediate wake of the Brexit vote, though, the mood is grim, the EU leadership is angry, and investors are spooked.

Third Rolls-Royce Wraith teaser looks inward

After shadowy images of the 2014 Rolls-Royce Wraith in profile and of the car's rump, the slow striptease of this hyper-luxury coupe finally starts to show us what the inside of the car will look like. We'll get our up-close look at the 2014 Wraith at the Geneva Motor Show on March 5th, but to tide us over until then, Rolls-Royce has provided a pair of images showing just some of the details that will be present inside.
Promising the interior of an "ultra-luxury yacht," the Wraith will get plenty of soft leather and real wood paneling, and as we suspected, this car will share a lot of interior bits with its sedan counterpart, the Rolls-Royce Ghost. We can somewhat see this from the second image provided showing the placement of the clock and the air vents that look almost identical to what can be seen currently on the Ghost. On the Wraith, though, the clock's hands feature "Blood Orange" tips, which not only contrast the high-gloss, piano black finish of this instrument panel but also is designed to pay homage to the aviation side of Rolls-Royce.