1956 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith

The Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith was the company's first post-war model and was introduced in late 1946 and employed a chassis similar to that of the Silver Dawn and Bentley MkVI, though with a 7-inch longer wheelbase at 10 feet 7 inches. It was designed to carry traditional coach-built bodies rather than the MkVI's pioneering 'standard steel' bodywork. The suspension was comprised of a coil-sprung independent front setup, which necessitated the rigid chassis to function properly, and a live axle with convention semi-elliptic springs at the rear. A hybrid hydro-mechanical system with hydraulic front brakes and mechanical rears using the mechanical servo providing the stopping power.

The straight six-cylinder engine was designed during the postwar era and initially intended to power the Bentley Mark V. The conventional overhead valve gear was replaced by an 'F-head' layout with larger valves and generous water jacketing around the valve seats. It had the same bore and stroke dimensions (albeit the bores were now chromium-plated) as the pre-war unit, thus the same 4,257cc displacement, which grew to 4,566cc in 1951 and in 1955, after the introduction of the Silver Cloud, to 4,887cc for the remaining Silver Wraiths. The engine used a new synchromesh gearbox and the chassis lubrication system was now centralized. Later, the four-speed manual gearbox was supplemented by a General Motors Hydra-Matic automatic option from 1952.

The original 127-inch wheelbase platform continued through November of 1953 when it was replaced by a longer, 133-inch wheelbase. Rolls-Royce would produce 1,883 examples of the Silver Wraith with 639 resting on the long wheelbase.

1956 Rolls-Royce
The 1956 Rolls-Royce lineup included the six-cylinder Silver Wraith resting on a 133-inch wheelbase with coach-built bodies created by Hooper, Mulliner, and Park Ward (among others) as limousine and touring saloons. The Silver Cloud had just been introduced in Britain in the spring of 1955 and intended to replace the Silver Dawn and a companion to Bentley's new 'S' (S1) series. It used a new frame with a wheelbase that measured 123-inches, three inches longer than the Silver Dawn, and equipped with the 298.2 cubic-inch F-head six-cylinder unit powering the Silver Wraith. Along with the standard Saloon coachwork, James Young, Park Ward, and Mulliner also clothed the Silver Cloud with custom coachwork.

The Phantom IV was based on the Silver Wraith chassis but strengthened and lengthened to 229 inches with a wheelbase of 145 inches. It was powered by Rolls-Royce's only straight-8 engine and between 1950 and 1956 just 18 examples were built but only 15 were ever sold, and only to heads of state and royalty.

Rolls-Royce continued to power its production vehicles with six-cylinder power through 1959 when it turned to V-8 powerplants for its Silver Cloud II.

by Daniel Vaughan | Oct 2021