1968 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow Saloon

The Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow luxury saloon was built from 1965 until 1980 and was the first Rolls-Royce to be constructed using a monocoque chassis. The original Silver Shadow was 3.5-inch narrow and shorter than the Silver Cloud in which it replaced. Even though it had a smaller footprint, it offered increased passenger and luggage space tanks to more efficient packaging made possible by its construction.

The Silver Shadow introduced many new features such as disc brakes instead of drum brakes and independent rear suspension rather than the ageing live axle design of previous cars. They had an innovative high-pressure hydraulic system with dual-circuit braking and hydraulic self-levelling suspension. The innovative high-pressure hydraulic system was licensed from Citroen. At first, both the front and rear of the car were controlled by the levelling system; the front levelling was deleted in 1969 as it had been determined that the rear levelling did almost all the work.

The pre-1970 Shadow 1 was powered by a 6.2-liter V8 offering 172 horsepower and mated to the same 4-speed automatic gearbox as the Silver Cloud sourced from General Motors.

This particular Rolls Royce Silver Shadow has just 25,000 miles on its odometer.

By Daniel Vaughan | Oct 2017