Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud Walkaround

Rolls-Royce began building its own car bodies in 1949 when the Silver Dawn model was launched.  Of the in-house designs starting then, I think the best looking was the early-series Silver Cloud that appeared in 1955.

Here in America it gained attention by David Ogilvy's famous "At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock" advertisement that I mentioned in my post "The Rolls-Royce with the Noisy Clock".

Wikipedia states that the lead stylist for the Silver Cloud was John Blatchley.  Two quotes of interest from Wikipedia (as of 21 May 2023) are:

"John Polwhele Blatchley (1 July 1913 – 16 February 2008) was a London-born car designer known for his work with J Gurney Nutting & Co Limited and Rolls-Royce Limited.  He began his career as designer with Gurney Nutting in 1935, moving up to Chief Designer before leaving in 1940 to join Rolls-Royce.  There he served as a draughtsman (1940–43), stylist in the car division (1943–55), and chief styling engineer (1955–69)."

"Development of new models continued but the designs presented to the board meeting which would decide on the new model to be introduced in 1955 were rejected as being too modern.  In the space of a week Blatchley produced a complete new concept to the board's requirements and it was immediately accepted... This became the Silver Cloud and S Type [Bentley], Rolls-Royce's last standard models based on a separate chassis."

Walkaround  images below are of a 1956 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud Sedan by Bring-a-Trailer Auctions.  The car has the standard 123-inch (3124 mm) wheelbase.

Gallery

The famous advertisement by David Ogilvy.  Click on the image to enlarge.

The classic Rolls-Royce Radiator grille design was retained -- but got increasingly altered in future redesigns.

It wasn't as easy at it might seem to combine the classic grille and hood with an envelope-type body where most element were integrated, rather than separate (as they were before the mid-1930s). 

The passenger compartment greenhouse hints of "razor edge" English coachbuilder designs of the 1930s and '40s.  

The trunks shape is rather bland, but that might have been necessary so as not to compete with and detract from other, more important details.

It doesn't even carry the Rolls-Royce logotype that's found below, on the bumper.

The character lines on the fender sides add interest and help reduce potential slab-sidedness.  Chrome trim in their place would have been disastrously undignified for "The Best Car in the World."

The fenderline is in line with post- World War 2 styling fashion.  The basic profile resembles that of the redesigned 1950 Buick Roadmaster line. 

But the rear fender retains a greater degree of separation due to its stronger front edge.  Besides the grille, frontal details that link the design to the past are the headlight assemblies and the rounded fender fronts.