
A few years ago, big John H – currently available for your listening and viewing pleasure on the all-new PH Podcast – spotted a well-used Phantom for middling money, and claimed that it was ‘everything a Rolls-Royce should be’. He was right, of course, although that particular example, which was advertised at the time for £80k, remains on sale to this day, suggesting that the market for older secondhand Phantoms isn’t exactly white-hot. Or not fast-moving, at any rate.
So it’ll be interesting to see how long this car – older still and with a positively galactic (in Phantom terms) 93k miles on the clock – sticks around for. As you might expect, it has affordability in its corner, being listed for a tenner under £60k, making it the cheapest Phantom currently loitering in the classifieds. Less predictably, it also lists Mr Chris Harris, formerly of this parish, among its six previous owners. Which is nice.
Chris’s fondness for the Phantom is well known. In fact, we have documented evidence of his partiality because he was minded to winkle out a very similar-looking car back in 2013, and suggested that he wouldn’t mind owning one if other road users could ever be convinced that he wasn’t the hired help. Lest we forget, many fewer people knew Chris by sight back in the halcyon days of forever ago.


With the tele putting paid to that problem and his pockets eventually bulging with BBC gravy, at some point in the indeterminate past (specific dates welcome below), Chris evidently followed up on his curiosity and bought a black Phantom from 2005. Ten seconds of internet-based research suggests he kept it on the road and appreciated it for all the reasons anyone probably would. Moreover, the current vendor suggests that his ownership did not interrupt a full Rolls-Royce service history.
Doubtless it added numbers to the odometer, Chris being a man disinclined to sit still for long. Or to drive in the Wodehousian manner of a chauffeur, either. So we don’t doubt this Phantom has consumed super unleaded at an elevated rate at some point in its life; the question is, would that give us pause for thought when buying? And the answer is, probably not. Attentive servicing, as ever, is the key. And Rolls-Royce services tend to be attentive in the extreme.
Additionally, increasing rarity seems to have preserved the seventh-generation Phantom from genuine bargain basement valuations. Our buying guide from 2018 reckoned you could buy one then for £75k; in 2025, the next cheapest VII after the two we’ve mentioned is £87k. It probably helps that the car’s reputation for excellence and opulence has solidified over the years, and, unimportant technology aside, the Phantom’s appeal seems unaffected by time. In other words, as we used to say: you know you want to…