Nearly two years ago, we griped about the Rolls-Royce Wraith Inspired by Music, which seemed to us to be a lamentable co-opting of rock ’n’ roll’s hardscrabble roots. It seems that enough well-heeled vintage-guitar collectors disagreed with us, because now the British luxury arm of BMW is soldiering forth with a series of nine Wraiths designed by U.K. music legends. Six of the nine have been announced, and four have already been built.
Two of them are Roger Daltrey’s, and the proceeds from their sale will benefit the Teenage Cancer Trust. The first of the cars celebrates the Who, the Commander of the British Empire’s 53-year-old rock band. The dashboard clock features the band’s classic mod-target roundel logo, as does the leather “waterfall” between the two rear seats. And while lyrics from “Join Together” and “I Can See for Miles” find their way into the car’s design, we think the best touch is the embroidery of Keith Moon’s “Pictures of Lily” drum set, which was blown up at the end of a famous appearance on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967. Tom and Dick Smothers had requested that the band replicate their infamous instrument-destroying shtick on the show, so Moon, a man solidly of the excess-is-just-enough school, requested a pyro cannon be placed into one of his kick drums. The paltry cannon’s bang/poof during rehearsals wasn’t enough for the skinsman, so he requested more explosives—then added more of his own. The chaotic result, at the end of a performance of “My Generation,” singed Pete Townshend’s hair and damaged his hearing.
The second of Daltrey’s automobiles pays tribute to Tommy, the band’s landmark concept album from 1969. Most notably, the car features an airbrushed rendition of the record’s cover on the hood, a flight of fancy that would do Greg of Akron proud. Inside, each headrest is embroidered with a motif relating to the album art, while the rear-seat waterfall features a pinball machine in reference to Tommy’s classic track, “Pinball Wizard.” By 1969, the Who were no longer spitting out maximum R&B and had moved on to a sort of grandeur that would set the stage for the next decade of arena rock. And nothing evokes “arena rock” like album art airbrushed on your muscular coupe’s hood.
Ray Davies of the Kinks, famed for writing great pop songs and feuding with his brother Dave, has contributed a Wraith to the mix as well. The Davies car isn’t quite as radical as the Tommy machine, although we do hope its eventual buyer adds a bumper sticker noting the owner’s membership in the Village Green Preservation Society. Aside from Davies’s signature on the headrests and a Kinks logo on the waterfall, Davies put his touch on the car’s included pair of umbrellas. Each brolly is engraved with the line, “When it’s raining on a sunny afternoon in the summertime,” paraphrasing the 1966 single “Sunny Afternoon.”
Giles Martin, son of Sir George Martin, the man responsible for the Beatles’ studio wizardry, teamed up with Rolls to honor his late father, who passed away in 2016. Martin’s collaboration with the Beatles pushed recorded audio in directions never before attempted and set the stage for the huge recorded productions of the 1970s. The Martin Wraith features the titles of his 30 number-one singles embroidered in the waterfall, while his signature is stitched into the headrests. The proceeds from the sale of this car will benefit the Fly Navy Heritage Trust, which restores and flies classic Royal Navy aircraft.
Dame Shirley Bassey, whom you may remember from her three James Bond theme songs—one of which, “Goldfinger,” was recorded with Sir George Martin—celebrates her 37 studio albums and her grand total of 79 weeks in the British top-10 charts. The headrest embroidery recalls her 2007 album, Get The Party Started, while the diamond embroidered in the waterfall commemorates her performance of the theme from 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever. The doorsills and the Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament are finished in gold in a nod to one Auric Goldfinger, who famously traveled in a gold-bodied Phantom III.
Rolls has announced two more automobiles in the series: one, a collaboration with Status Quo frontman Francis Rossi, will feature Fender Telecasters embroidered in the headrests. We’ll be sorely disappointed if the car doesn’t also come with a full denim interior. Longtime Rolling Stones and former Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood has been given the chance to celebrate his solo career. His upcoming Wraith will serve as a tribute to his 2010 solo album, I Feel Like Playing.
Somehow, we find all this silliness appropriate. Martin was a studio nerd without equal. Daltrey has been a rocker of the masses far longer than he was a manic Mod. Wood has played with both Rod Stewart and Mick Jagger, both proponents of the rock-’n’-roll good life. These are successful, creative people who’ve spent a lifetime in the arts and reaped major financial rewards for it. At 67, Rossi is the youngest of those honored here, while Bassey, at 80, is the oldest. It’s opulence by senior citizens for senior citizens. We’ll not remind you that perhaps the best-known line Daltrey ever spat out was, “I hope I die before I get old.” After all, that was 52 years ago.
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