The most reliable Rolls-Royce is the one nobody spares

A 2019 Phantom from Germany has covered 775,404 km on its original twin-turbo V12, turbos and gearbox — and still looks showroom-fresh.

The Rolls-Royce Phantom is usually pictured as a car for rare outings, but this example from Germany lives by a different script. The 2019 saloon has already covered 775,404 km and still looks almost like a car straight off the showroom floor.

The car was featured by the YouTube channel Hamid Tailormade Cars. The owner from Stuttgart claims the Phantom still has its original 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12, its factory turbos and its gearbox. The only notable replacement over all that time — the soft-close mechanism on the driver’s door. For a luxury saloon with this much electronics and mass, that’s almost a mockery of the stereotype about pricey European cars being terrified of high mileage.

The mileage is impressive even before you factor in the car’s class. Over seven years the Phantom has averaged around 110,772 km a year. Going by its claimed consumption of roughly 16.7 l/100 km, the car has already burned through about 129,000 litres of petrol. It has 224,596 km left until the one-million mark — for an ordinary owner that’s an entire car’s lifetime, but for this Rolls-Royce it looks like just the next stage.

The secret isn’t a miracle but the way it’s used and serviced. The owner shows a full service history: the Phantom visits the dealer roughly every two months. It has already been driven across Scandinavia, Siberia and the Western Sahara, so this is no limousine for parking outside a hotel.

The story has an odd moral: sometimes the most reliable Rolls-Royce is the one nobody spares.