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1965-1976 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow I

The Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow is a full-size luxury car produced by British automaker Rolls-Royce in various forms from 1965 to 1980. It was the first of the marque to use unitary body and chassis construction.

The Silver Shadow was produced from 1965 to 1976, and the Silver Shadow II from 1977 to 1980. The combined model run was 30,057 cars manufactured; James May reported it in 2014 as the largest production volume of any Rolls-Royce model.

The Silver Shadow was originally intended to be called Rolls-Royce Silver Mist, but was replaced with Silver Shadow at the last minute due to Mist meaning "manure" or "crap" in German.[4] It was designed with several modernisations in response to concerns that the company was falling behind in automotive innovation, most notably in its unitary construction.

Style-wise, the John Polwhele Blatchley design was a major departure from its predecessor, the Silver Cloud. More than 50% of Silver Clouds had been sold on the domestic market where, by the standards of much of Europe and most of North America, roads were narrow and crowded. The new Shadow was 3+1⁄2 inches (8.9 cm) narrower and 7 inches (18 cm) shorter than the Silver Cloud, but nevertheless managed to offer increased passenger and luggage space, thanks to more efficient space utilisation made possible by unitary construction[5] and a full-width, slab-sided body design.