This is a 1973 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow that has been swapped onto a 4×4 chassis, as a fully-functioning homage to “Jules” – a custom Rolls-Royce Corniche 4×4 that competed in the 1981 Paris-Dakar Rally.
This unusual four-wheeler is now being offered for sale on eBay out of the United Kingdom. It’s said to be built on a Mitsubishi Warrior chassis and it utilizes the same turbodiesel drivetrain. It has full 4×4 functionality, and the seller even claims it gets 9 L / 100 kms – that’s about 23 mpg.
Fast Facts: A Rolls Royce Silver Shadow 4×4
- This 1973 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow has been converted into a 4×4 using a Mitsubishi Warrior chassis and drivetrain. The build pays tribute to the original “Jules” Paris-Dakar Rally Rolls-Royce and features a turbodiesel engine, full four-wheel drive capability, and a reported fuel economy of 23 mpg.
- The original “Jules” was a fiberglass-bodied replica of a Rolls-Royce Corniche mounted to a Toyota Land Cruiser HJ45 frame, powered by a Chevrolet Corvette 5.7 liter V8. Created by French racers Thierry de Montcorgé and Jean-Christophe Pelletier, it was built for the 1981 Paris-Dakar with backing from Christian Dior.
- Despite Rolls-Royce’s initial legal threats, the involvement of Christian Dior – who used the project to promote its men’s fragrance “Jules” – allowed the team to proceed. The car ran competitively in the 1981 rally, briefly placing 13th before a crash and delay caused its disqualification, though it still completed the full course.
- The replica Silver Shadow offered for sale includes Mitsubishi’s chassis, suspension, brakes, and drivetrain, all integrated under the Rolls-Royce shell. The builder claims over £30,000 invested and 2,000 kilometers of testing. It’s now listed in the UK on eBay for £18,995, roughly $25,800 USD.
The Story Of The Original Rolls-Royce 4×4 – “Jules”
The existence of the one-off Rolls-Royce four-wheel drive named Jules comes down to two wealthy French playboys, Thierry de Montcorgé and Jean-Christophe Pelletier, and a few bottles of (only the best) French wine. At some point in their Bordeaux-infused evening they struck upon the idea of turning Thierry’s Rolls-Royce Corniche into a four-wheel drive desert racer, and then taking part in the Paris-Dakar Rally with it.
This is “Jules” – a custom Rolls-Royce Corniche 4×4 that competed in the 1981 Paris-Dakar Rally. Please note, this is the vehicle that inspired the eBay listed Rolls-Royce 4×4 in this article, it is not the same vehicle however. Image courtesy of Aguttes.
Now usually these wild ideas that seem like unbridled genius when knee-deep in Châteauneuf-du-Pape don’t seem quite so brilliant in the cold light of dawn. Fortunately for the motoring world, Thierry and Jean-Christophe decided to move ahead with the plan – and thus the most outlandish Rolls-Royce of the time came into being.
The original plan had been to use the Rolls-Royce Corniche body mounted to a four-wheel drive chassis, but this was soon axed. The steel unibody of the Corniche was based closely on the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, and it was simply too heavy to ever be competitive. The car tipped the scales at almost 5,000 lbs.
As a result of this, it was decided that an exact fiberglass replica of the body of the car would be built, using Thierry’s Corniche to make the mould. The only Rolls-Royce parts that were used were the windows, the chrome bumpers, the dashboard, that famous front grille, and the steering system.
The project was headed up by Michel Mokrycki, a man well-versed in preparing rally cars including a series of Citroën prototypes.
A search was completed to find a four-wheel drive chassis with a wheelbase close to the Corniche, and they settled on the Toyota Land Cruiser, specifically the HJ45 variant. The final vehicle would keep the steel ladder frame, the axles, brakes, leaf springs, transmission and transfer case, but the original engine would be swapped out for something far more fun – a Corvette V8.
The use of a 5.7 liter Chevrolet Corvette V8 made a lot of sense, it was a well-tested engine that produced gobs of torque and horsepower, and it was actually a pretty reliable unit with the right care. It also sounded right – the original engine in the Corniche had been the 6.75 liter Rolls-Royce L410 V8, so it was the correct engine architecture to boot.
The Rolls-Royce 4×4 shown in this article is built on a Mitsubishi Warrior chassis and it utilizes the same turbodiesel drivetrain.
A set of white steel wheels were added, shod with suitable off-road tires of course, and tubular steel framing was added under the body for additional strength. A full roll cage was fitted inside along with racing bucket seats and a rally-style steering wheel, then a 332 liter fuel tank was fitted in the rear to ensure that Jules would have enough range to make it between the distant fuel stops on the Paris-Dakar.
Christian Dior Saves The Day
When Rolls-Royce got wind of the project they took immediate action to have it shut down, on intellectual property grounds, but fortunately for all involved the project’s founders had an ace up their sleeve – they had signed on Christian Dior as their key sponsor. As the story goes, it would be Christian Dior who successfully talked Rolls-Royce down and allowed the project to proceed.
The reason Christian Dior chose to sponsor the wild-looking 4×4 Corniche was that they had a new product they needed to market to men, and they realized that very few men would be able to resist the appeal of a Rolls-Royce Paris-Dakar racer.
This new product was their cologne named “Jules,” and so the car would carry extensive Jules branding and be officially named “Jules” as a result.
Jules would take part in the 1981 Paris-Dakar Rally, with Thierry de Montcorgé and Jean-Christophe Pelletier sharing co-driving duties, and as the stories go they took a supply of champagne and oysters with them – both of those commodities are famously hard to find in the Sahara.
The interior of the Rolls remains in largely original, though somewhat worn condition. The instrument cluster from the Mitsubishi has been installed off to the left of the steering wheel.
The car performed surprisingly well, regularly finishing stages inside the top 20 from a field of 291 entrants. By the halfway point of the race, Jules was up in 13th position, shocking many in the event. This is when disaster struck, the car hit a tree and the steering was damaged, a local mechanic was able to perform a repair but it took so long that the car was disqualified from the official results.
Despite this disqualification, the event founder Thierry Sabine gave permission for the car to finish the race and cross the line – it wouldn’t be classified in the final results but it did complete the full course.
The Rolls-Royce 4×4 Shown Here
The vehicle you see here isn’t the original Jules, it has two-doors too many for that. It was built using a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow unibody sedan, which was then grafted onto a 2007 Mitsubishi Warrior ladder chassis, keeping the Mitsubishi turbodiesel drivetrain in place.
The Mitsubishi Warrior, also called the Mitsubishi Triton or Mitsubishi L200 in some world markets, is a mid-sized pickup truck that has been built over six generations from 1978 to the current day. It’s a competitor for the likes of the Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux, and it’s built using the body-on-chassis method.
The owner, and now seller, of this unusual Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow/Mitsubishi Warrior combination says that it was professionally built, and that he has £30,000 of receipts to prove it.
The vehicle uses the chassis, drivetrain, suspension, and brakes from the Mitsubishi, and he says that he’s done over 2,000 kms (1,242 miles) of driving with it since February.
The owner, and now seller, of this unusual Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow/Mitsubishi Warrior combination says that it was professionally built, and that he has £30,000 of receipts to prove it.
It’s now being offered for sale out of Kettering in the United Kingdom on eBay, with a Buy It Now price of £18,995 or approximately $25,800 USD, which seems downright affordable when you consider that it’s essentially two vehicles in one, and one of those vehicles is a Roller.
If you’d like to read more about it or enquire about buying it you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of eBay Seller
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.