Rolls-Royce has spent more than a century naming its cars after things you can’t quite see or hear. The habit started with the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, a 40/50 H.P. car whose quiet running earned it a name that stuck. Since then, the company has returned to the same idea again and again.

Here are five Rolls-Royce names that the company itself ties to ghosts, spirits and silence. Each one comes with what Rolls-Royce’s own press archive says about it.

1. 1907–1925 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost

Claude Johnson, the company’s commercial managing director, gave chassis 60551 its name. According to Rolls-Royce’s Models of the Marque history, the car wore silver paint and silver-plated fittings. Johnson chose the name “in homage to its almost supernatural quietness and smooth ride.” Its six-cylinder engine displaced 7,036cc at first, then grew to 7,428cc from 1910.

After the 1907 Scottish Reliability Trial, the car covered 15,000 miles, running day and night except Sundays. The name caught on so well that Rolls-Royce adopted “Silver Ghost” for every 40/50 H.P. chassis built until 1925. In all, the company built 6,173 in Britain and 1,703 more in Springfield, Massachusetts, between 1907 and 1925, according to that Rolls-Royce history.

2. 1925–Today Rolls-Royce Phantom

The Silver Ghost’s replacement kept the theme going. Rolls-Royce says the “New Phantom” launched on May 2, 1925, announced in The Times. In its Phantom centenary release, the company credits Johnson as the likely author of the name.

That same release explains the thinking. “Johnson clearly understood the power of names like Phantom, Wraith and Ghost to convey the products’ supernatural quietness and ethereal grace,” Rolls-Royce writes. Since then, the name has run through eight generations. Rolls-Royce says it now handcrafts the eighth generation at Goodwood.

3. 2013 Rolls-Royce Wraith

Rolls-Royce groups Wraith with its other quiet-car names. For example, the Phantom centenary release names Wraith alongside Phantom and Ghost as words chosen for “supernatural quietness.” Likewise, the company’s Spectre history lists Wraith among the current names with namesakes from its past.

The modern Wraith coupe arrived in 2013, according to Rolls-Royce’s Black Arrow release. That 2023 release marked the end of production with the Black Badge Wraith Black Arrow, limited to 12 cars. Rolls-Royce also called it the last V12 coupe it will ever make. In addition, the Black Arrow honors Thunderbolt, George Eyston’s 1938 land speed record car, which reached 357.497 mph with two Rolls-Royce V12s.

4. 2009–Today Rolls-Royce Ghost

Rolls-Royce brought the Ghost name back as a model of its own in 2009. The company’s Ghost press kit says the first Ghost launched that year at the Frankfurt Motor Show. Then, its Spectre history lists Ghost among the names that evoke “silence, refinement and mystery.”

The current car leans into that idea. Rolls-Royce describes a “Formula for Serenity” that aims for a near-noiseless cabin. However, the company also admits that “a completely silent interior is actually rather disorienting,” so engineers let the Ghost keep a soft whisper. Even the dash plays along, with an illuminated Ghost nameplate surrounded by more than 850 “stars.”

5. 2022 Rolls-Royce Spectre

The newest name in the family carries the oldest backstory. Rolls-Royce presented the Spectre in October 2022 as “the first all-electric Rolls-Royce.” Its history of the Spectre name says the word “sits alongside Ghost, Phantom and Wraith as an evocation of silence, refinement and mystery.”

The name goes back to August 1910, when Johnson named demonstrator chassis 1601 “The Silver Spectre.” Later, the company used “Spectre” as a code name for its secret V12 test cars. The first of them, 30EX, began road testing in November 1934. Nine more EX cars followed, and the design finally entered production as the Phantom III in 1936.

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This article was created with the help of AI and was reviewed and edited by Fast Lane Only editors before publication.