Junkyard Find: Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin
junkyard find rolls royce silver shadow

Most of these Junkyard Finds come from big chain-owned self-service wrecking yards that have fast inventory turnover and plenty of fresh cars at all times. This means that I’m going to see lots of Volvo 240s in California, lots of old Subarus in Colorado, and millions of acre-feet of Tauruses and Sables everywhere. Oddball high-end stuff shows up, too, like the occasional Maserati or every Jaguar XJ-S ever made, but you just aren’t going to see a Rolls-Royce in this type of yard… until now.

The Silver Shadow is the least valuable Rolls-Royce, and you can find project-grade examples for the price of a beater Tercel. But they’re still rare, and their parts tend to be worth enough that most won’t make it through the auction process that filters out semi-valuable cars before they go for the standing lowball offer from the U-Wrench-It bidder.

We’ve had a Silver Shadow in the 24 Hours of LeMons, of course; it was purchased for $1,000 and the champagne cooler or something was sold off to get the price under the 500-buck LeMons limit. Of course, keeping the thing running ended up costing plenty, because you just can’t find Rollers at the cheap self-service yards.

I’m betting that this one showed up at this Los Angeles-area yard as a near-completely-stripped shell, probably after some Silver Shadow restorer grabbed all the good stuff. It’s possible, though, that it arrived with lots of bits still on it and got picked clean later.

Given the absurd thickness of the steel used in these cars, the scrap value is likely to be fairly lucrative for the yard, once the employees decide that there’s nothing left to sell on this car.

The Silver Shadow was built for the 1965 through 1980 model years, the VIN tag was nowhere to be found on this one, and there aren’t many clues about its age. Side marker lights were required in the United States starting in 1968, and the holes for those lights are visible on this car, so I’m going to say it’s a 1968-80 model (it could be a Bentley T-series as well, though the yard labeled it as a Rolls-Royce). Can anybody narrow it down further from viewing photos of this hulk?




Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 80 comments
  • Deconstruction Deconstruction on Jan 10, 2016

    The small rear window suggests a long-wheel-base car. This, in combination with the position of the fuel filler and the shape of the holes for the side-marker lamps and the contours of the wings would make it a Silver Wraith II. How the mighty are fallen...

  • Dagr382 Dagr382 on Nov 20, 2018

    Reading these comments, I realize that only in writing of the glories of Japanese mediocrity are these commentators well informed.

  • Bill Wade Norm, while true I'll leave you with this. My 2023 RAM is running Android 8 released in 2017.My wife's navigation on her GM truck is a 2021 release, I believe the latest. Android Auto seems to update very week or two. Now, which would you rather have? Anybody with a car a couple of years old NEVER sees any updates. Heck, if your TV is a few years old it's dead on updates. At least cell phones are rapidly updated. If your old phone won't update, buy another $200 phone. If your GM vehicle doesn't update do what, buy another $50,000 GM vehicle?
  • Lou_BC Once again, Mustang is the last pony car standing. Camaro RIP, Challenger RIP.
  • FreedMike Next up should DEFINITELY be the Cadillac Eldorado. On the subject of Caddies, I saw a Lyriq in person for the first time a couple of days ago, and I'm changing my tune on its' styling. In person, it works quite well, and the interior is very nicely executed.
  • Probert Sorry to disappoint: https://robbreport.com/motors/cars/tesla-model-y-worlds-best-selling-vehicle-1234848318/and any list. of articles with a 1 second google search. It's a tough world out there - but you can do it!!!!!!
  • ToolGuy "We're marking the anniversary of the time Robert Farago started the GM death watch and called for the company to die."• No, we aren't. Robert Farago wrote that in April 2005. It was reposted in 2009 on the eve of the actual bankruptcy filing.The byline dates are sometimes strange/off with the site revisions (and the 'this is a repost' note got lost), but the date string in the link is correct (...2005/04...). Posting about GM bankruptcy in 2005 was a slightly more difficult call than doing it in 2009.-- The Truth About Calendars
Next