Motoring icon celebrates 100 years with strange stunt

This year, the Rolls-Royce Phantom has made it to 100 years, having first launched in 1925 as the flagship of the marque’s lineup.

Now spanning eight generations, the Phantom is one of longest-running luxury vehicles in the world, and Rolls-Royce has made sure it didn’t cross over the century marker without making some noise.

In what can only be described as a bizarre stunt, one of the pre-production Phantom prototypes was submerged in a swimming pool, the Tinside Lido in Plymouth, England.

The reason why? Because there’s a rumour that a rockstar once did the same thing.

The story goes that Keith Moon, drummer of The Who, drove a car into a swimming pool at a Michigan hotel while celebrating his 21st birthday in 1972.

However, while Rolls-Royce claims the car was one of their own, Moon himself said it was a Lincoln Continental, and others have stated the whole incident never happened.

Even Rolls-Royce itself said in its press release celebrating the Phantom’s centenary: “Whether a car ended up in the pool or not, the myth is so potent that it has become the definitive image of rock ‘n’ roll indulgence – and as such, the car in the pool could only be a Rolls-Royce.”

A strange ‘event’ to recreate then, though it’s been done before: Jeremy Clarkson drove a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow into a pool in a Top Gear episode as a homage to the Moon myth, while the 1997 Oasis album ‘Be Here Now’ also features a Silver Shadow in a pool – though neither used a Phantom.

Like the Oasis tribute, Rolls-Royce’s most recent swimming pool stunt saw the engine of the car removed before it was put into the water, with the sacrificed Phantom set to be sent to scrapped anyway.

The Rolls-Royce Phantom is normally powered by a twin-turbo 6.75-litre V12 engine, shared with its Cullinan SUV sibling.