No rain on this lady's parade

SLACKS AND A FLAT cap, that's what I've got on – my more usual attire of jeans and polo top have been sidelined for the day. We are gathered in the smart surrounds of Halkin Street in central London to pick up the keys to a Rolls-Royce Phantom – and to help cause a multi-million euro traffic jam, writes KYLE FORTUNE

The room’s slowly filling up with the drivers and passengers of the cars collecting outside on the street and around Belgrave Square. Some of the drivers are clearly of the same vintage as their vehicles, but there’s still a buzz in the air as they await some instructions on the day’s activities. It’s the old money audience for the brand: distinctly different in their demeanour and dress sense than the celebrity and new-money buyers of the the current Rolls-Royce models on sale these days. As such, the room is fairly full of tweed, the odd pair of vibrant jumbo corduroys and some garishly coloured slacks.

It’s easy to poke fun, but the mood is convivial, everyone’s friendly and there’s plenty of camaraderie about the room. I’ve no doubt if any car breaks down there’ll be plenty of people willing to muck in and help out.

The line-up of cars outside represents Rolls-Royce models from every era of the firm’s production. Participants include 15 hand-built, contemporary Phantom and Ghost models, and a number of vintage Silver Ghosts, Clouds, Shadows and Spurs.

The reason we’re all here? To celebrate 100 years of the Spirit of Ecstasy – or as some of you will know her, the flying lady. For the uninformed, she’s the lady atop the Rolls Royce’s buttress grille.

The lady in question is said to be modelled on Eleanor Velasco Thornton, and sculpted by Charles Sykes. It was commissioned by John Montagu, a member of the English artistocracy, who is believed to have had an affair with Ms Thornton, his secretary at the time. It was this sculpture which adorned the radiator of his Rolls and went on to represent the brand.

Originally, Rolls-Royces did without a bonnet ornament, but the fashion in the firm’s early days was for owners to add an embellishment. So, to avoid anything uncouth – and to protect its image – Rolls-Royce saw fit to commission its own. The Spirit, or flying lady, has gone on to sit atop of every Rolls-Royce grille since. The company’s current chief executive, Torsten Müller-Ötvös, says: “The Spirit of Ecstasy is a genuine icon, a graceful goddess who has adorned the prow of Rolls-Royce cars past and present.

More than 100 Spirits took to London’s streets to celebrate the centenary, the route taking in lots of the English capital’s landmarks and many areas important to Roll-Royce’s history. We pass Charles Roll’s house on Hill Street, Rolls-Royce’s first dealership on Conduit Street and Westminster Abbey, where there’s a memorial window in the north aisle of the nave celebrating Sir Henry Royce’s life, which ended abruptly in a crash in 1910, a year before the unveiling of the flying lady emblem.

The cars glide through town, with the best efforts of Rolls-Royce’s Goodwood staff to keep all of them together curtailed by London’s notorious traffic, plentiful traffic lights and some road closures for Chinese New Year. It’s still a spectacle though, a multi-million euro convoy serenely sliding through London’s busy streets and distracting the shoppers’ glare from the windows.

I’m in a blue and silver Phantom, a car I’ve only experienced briefly before. Despite its enormous size and value, it’s an absolute cinch to drive in London’s traffic, the V12 engine silently hauling the mass of metal, polished wood, fine leather and inch-thick carpet with no fuss at all.

I’ve never really understood the Rolls-Royce allure before, thinking of it as just another luxury car. Yet it’s become much more.

It’s not simply a brand stuck in a bygone era, at least not if current owners BMW have anything to say. The very idea the Germans would own such an institution of English aristocracy one day may have been anathema to previous generations of owners, but the records show it has been the saviour of the flying lady. Rolls might source many of its parts with the German parent, but production is still solely at its UK headquarters in Goodwood, where it’s the largest local employer, with some 1,000 staff.

As Müller-Ötvös outlines in a TV interview that morning, even in the firm’s toughest year in 2009, it only faced a fall-off in sales of 17 per cent compared to the previous year. “So we were affected (by the recession), yes, but definitely not at that level as others saw.”

And he’s bullish about the brand’s future. “North America still is our biggest market, number two now is China but I would say in general all the Asian markets are doing tremendous and we saw excellent growth patterns, 400 per cent increase in India for instance, 400 per cent increase in South Korea, so all the Asian markets are doing very well but I must say also the UK market for instance, which is still our third largest market, is still good for us.” It seems that while the tweed might be giving way to the Dolce Gabbana, the fondness for the pomp and ceremony of the flying lady remains strong.