Rolls Royce Silver Cloud S1, S2 and S3

If you asked someone to draw you a Rolls Royce, they’d produce a sketch of a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud.  The Cloud was the last in a line of traditionally built and unmistakably styled Rolls Royce’s. Will you be on cloud nine if you buy one? Oh yes…

Tonnes of class, tonnes of style, tonnes of car and at the moment tonnes of value. The production of the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud ran for eleven years and although in some respects not much altered in that time, they came in three flavours – the Rolls Royce S1, S2 and S3.  

Rolls Royce Silver Cloud S1

After nearly half a decade in development, in 1955 the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud S1 arrived. It was superb blend of old and new. Rolls retained the simple box section welded steel chassis, with a beautiful, traditionally styled body, bolted on top. The bonnet, boot and doors were all lightweight aluminium. The engine was a thumping great 5.0 litre straight six. As always, Rolls take a view that it is far too working class to talk about bhp, but experts suggest around 150bhp from the six. By today’s standards the engine may appear somewhat agricultural, but it drives wonderfully. Air conditioning and power steering were added to the options list a year after launch in 1956. Be prepared to eat spinach and put in some effort if you do opt for one without power steering. 

Rolls Royce Silver Cloud S2

Rolls didn’t hang about…four years later in 1959, the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud S2 was launched. Externally, it was nigh on impossible to tell them apart, but lift that aluminium bonnet and it was all change. The straight six was in the bin and whopping 6.2 litre V8 nestled in its place. We say nestled, but it was more like wedged in. The original design was for a long thin straight six engine, we now had a bulbous v-shaped eight-cylinder monolith. The space was so squashed the simple act of changing a spark plug now necessitated taking a front wheel off! Although Rolls’ tight lipped approach to bhp figures remained, it leaked out this V8 was good for nearly 200bhp. All was soon forgiven. Other than the engine, it was steady as we go for the S2 with very little changes. 

Rolls Royce Silver Cloud S3

At the Paris Motor Show in the Winter of 1962, the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud S3 was unveiled. Again, Rolls’ conservatism prevailed. The S3 looked remarkable like the S1 and S2 with one notable exemption. The headlamps were now grouped in a four across the front of the Silver Cloud S3 and it looked stunning. Something so simple, yet it made a tremendous difference. Overall, purists will talk of the curvature of bonnet being an inch and a half different to the S2 and that famous grille being two inches tall, and the overall car being about a 100lb lighter…they’d be technically right, but c’mon! Rolls worked some magic on the internals of the magical V8 along with supplying huge SU’s which all put together boosted bhp to a smidgen over 200bhp, allegedly. It also guzzled fuel at a rate that caused Saudi oil barons to do cartwheels. Fuel economy and Silver Cloud are not phrases that sit well together.