Sometimes a car isn’t really about engines, speed, or even status. Sometimes it’s a love letter on wheels. That’s exactly what stole the show at the Concours of Elegance 2025 at Hampton Court Palace. Sure, the lawns were covered with million-dollar Ferraris, Bugattis, and Astons, but the car that took home the top honors wasn’t the fastest, loudest, or rarest. It was the most human.
The big winner, voted Best in Show by the car owners themselves, was a 1926 Rolls-Royce Phantom I with a name that sounds like it came out of a romance novel: The Phantom of Love. Notably, the Concours of Elegance 2024 Best in Show was another Rolls-Royce, a 1937 Phantom III Convertible.
The Phantom of Love
This car wasn’t built to dominate racetracks or to impress a boardroom. It was built by Clarence Gasque as the ultimate gift to his wife, heir to the Woolworths fortune. He didn’t just sign a check for a fancy ride—he essentially commissioned a four-wheeled palace. The price tag back then was £6,500, when you could buy a decent house in Britain for £500. That’s not passion, that’s obsession.
Step inside and it’s less “Rolls-Royce interior” and more Versailles on wheels. Satinwood panels, gilded trim, woven tapestries that took nearly a year to make, and porcelain vases holding enamel flowers designed never to wilt.
Sadly, Gasque died just 18 months later, so his grand gesture is a time capsule of devotion. The car bounced through collectors in Japan, the U.S., and Australia, but it’s still essentially untouched. Nearly a century later, it looks just as it did when it first rolled out—an honest, authentic snapshot of one man’s idea of everlasting love.
Concours of Elegance 2025
The Concours wasn’t short on metal to drool over. Every decade had its champion—from early Bugattis to a Ferrari California Spyder to a 1980s Aston Martin built for the Prince of Wales. There were Formula One icons, women-only showcases, even a “Thirty Under 30” class for the next generation of collectors.
But at the end of the day, the Phantom of Love towered above all of it. Not because it’s the rarest car, but because it’s the one that reminds you why people fall in love with cars in the first place.
