Rolls-Royce Trivia
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48 free Rolls-Royce trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Rolls-Royce is really a pair of stories. One is a luxury marque born from a 1904 handshake between an aristocratic racing driver and a self-taught engineer from a flour-milling family, whose Silver Ghost was called the best motor car in the world and whose Phantoms have carried monarchs, presidents and a Beatle. The other is an aero-engine firm that built the Merlin, went bust over a turbofan in 1971, and today powers airliners, submarines and, perhaps one day, a lunar base. These 48 questions cover both. They run from the founders and the first tiny twin-cylinder to the Spirit of Ecstasy's secret, the Goodwood factory and the BMW-Volkswagen tug of war of 1998, then cross to the jets: the Merlin's wartime quirks, the turbojets named for waterways, the bankruptcy, the Harrier and Concorde, and the giant UltraFan. It suits a pub quiz round, a petrolhead's birthday, or anyone who has wondered why the mascot ducks into the bonnet when touched. Play on your phone with instant answers and explanations, or print it for a group.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01After the Silver Ghost's 15,000-mile trial of 1907, an RAC strip-down found repairs costing roughly how much?
About £2
About £2 was the bill, precisely £2 2s 7d, where any rival of the day would have needed a full overhaul. The firm's managing director had run the car non-stop around Britain to prove the point.
Q 02The RB211's carbon-fibre Hyfil fan blades failed a 1970 test when what was fired into them at high speed?
A chicken carcass
A chicken carcass shattered the Hyfil fan in the bird-ingestion test, forcing a switch to heavier titanium blades. The cost overruns that followed pushed Rolls-Royce into receivership in February 1971.
Q 03In 2023 the UK Space Agency funded Rolls-Royce to design a small nuclear power plant for use where?
On the Moon
On the Moon, a fortnight of daylight gives way to a fortnight of darkness, so solar panels alone won't do; a nuclear plant could keep a base running continuously, whatever the sunlight.
Q 04What do the RR monograms on a modern Rolls-Royce Phantom's wheel hubs do as the wheels turn?
Stay upright
Stay upright is what they do: each hub badge sits on its own bearing, so the monogram reads the right way up even at speed. The coachlines down the flanks are still painted by hand.
Q 05Which Thunderbirds character chauffeurs Lady Penelope in FAB 1, her pink six-wheeled Rolls-Royce?
Parker
Parker, her butler, drives a car whose two pairs of front wheels are purely for looks, designer Derek Meddings admitted; Rolls-Royce approved the design and supplied a genuine Spirit of Ecstasy mascot for the model.
Q 06In the 1964 film Goldfinger, how does Auric Goldfinger smuggle gold out of England in his Rolls-Royce?
As its bodywork
As its bodywork: the gold is cast into the car's panels and driven to Switzerland, which is why the villain's number plate reads AU 1, the chemical symbol for gold. The car was a 1937 Phantom III.
Q 07On Queen Elizabeth II's Rolls-Royce state limousines, the Spirit of Ecstasy was swapped for a figure of whom?
Saint George
Saint George slaying the dragon rode on the bonnet whenever the Queen used her Phantom VI limousines, which carry no number plates. They were the principal official vehicles until two Bentleys arrived in 2002.
Q 08Why did Rolls-Royce change its RR monogram from red to black in 1933, contrary to the popular legend?
Clashed with paintwork
Clashed with paintwork is the real reason: red sometimes fought the coachwork colours clients chose. Royce died later that year, so the change is often misread as mourning, but it came first.
Q 09Charles Rolls died at Bournemouth in July 1910, the first Briton to be killed doing what?
Flying an aeroplane
Flying an aeroplane killed him when the tail of his Wright Flyer broke off during a display, making him the first Briton to die in a powered-aircraft crash. A month earlier he had flown non-stop to France and back.
Q 10Since HMS Valiant in 1966, what has Rolls-Royce supplied to every one of the Royal Navy's nuclear submarines?
Its reactor
Its reactor: every British nuclear submarine since HMS Valiant has used a Rolls-Royce pressurised water reactor. The first boat, HMS Dreadnought of 1963, ran on an American Westinghouse unit instead.
Q 11What happens to the Spirit of Ecstasy on every Rolls-Royce built since 2003 if the figure is struck?
Retracts into the radiator
Retracts into the radiator shell on a spring-loaded mount, from whichever direction she is hit, to protect pedestrians; a sensor also drops her out of sight if a thief tampers with her.
Q 12Rolls-Royce's Boat Tail of 2021, a trio of commissions, was reported as the priciest new car ever at roughly what?
$28 million
$28 million was the speculated price, then the world's most expensive street-legal new car until the 2023 Droptail topped it. Each rear deck opens butterfly-style onto a parasol, cocktail tables and two fridges chilled for champagne.
Q 13The Cullinan, the Rolls-Royce SUV launched in 2018, is named after the largest gem-quality example ever found of what?
Q 21In which foreign city's motor show were the first cars badged Rolls-Royce unveiled in December 1904?
Paris
Paris saw the twin-cylinder 10 hp, priced at £395, unveiled at its Salon; only 16 were built before the firm decided a twin was beneath the marque.
Q 22Nicholas Grimshaw's Goodwood plant for Rolls-Royce is hidden from the road partly by Britain's largest what?
Living roof
Living roof is the term for its 3.5 hectares of sedum, planted so the factory, opened on 1 January 2003, cannot be seen from the road. Grimshaw also designed the Eden Project in Cornwall.
Q 23Under the December 1904 agreement with Henry Royce, what did Charles Rolls's London dealership undertake to do?
Buy his entire output
A diamond
A diamond, the 3,100-carat Cullinan, gave its name to a car that US rules class as a station wagon, so it pays the gas-guzzler tax that most SUVs escape.
Q 14John Lennon's 1965 Rolls-Royce limousine was famously repainted in 1967 in what base colour, covered in Romany swirls?
Yellow
Yellow latex paint and artist Steve Weaver's floral swirls cost £290 and were finished the day before Sgt. Pepper came out. The car sold for $2,299,000 in 1985, then an auction record, and now lives in a Canadian museum.
Q 15Which magazine, not Rolls-Royce itself, coined 'the best car in the world' for the 40/50 model in 1907?
The Autocar
The Autocar coined the phrase and the firm has traded on it ever since. The 40/50 became the Silver Ghost, a name the press borrowed from a single silver-painted demonstrator and applied to all 7,874 built.
Q 16What does Rolls-Royce call the rear-hinged openings at the back of the Phantom, rejecting the usual 'suicide' nickname?
Coach doors
Coach doors are closed by hydraulic motors at the press of a button on the rear pillar, because a seated passenger cannot reach the handle of a door that opens backwards.
Q 17Instead of a rev counter, the dial on a modern Rolls-Royce Phantom's instrument panel shows the driver what?
Power reserve
Power reserve, the share of the engine's power not being used, is displayed where other cars put a tachometer, a quiet boast that the 6.75-litre engine is loafing.
Q 18Rolls-Royce jet engines such as the Derwent, Avon and Spey all take their names from what?
British rivers
British rivers suited the idea of continuous flow, water through a valley and air through a turbine, so the policy began with the first production jet in 1943. The piston engines had taken birds of prey instead.
Q 19In September 1914 the Admiralty requisitioned every available Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost chassis to build what?
Armoured cars
Armoured cars with a rotating Vickers machine-gun turret went to the Royal Naval Air Service, and a squadron later served Lawrence of Arabia against the Turks. Some were still fighting in Egypt in 1940.
Q 20Only 18 Rolls-Royce Phantom IVs were built between 1950 and 1956; to which buyers alone were they sold?
Royalty and heads of state
Royalty and heads of state were the only customers judged worthy: the first went to Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, and Spain's Franco ordered three. Its straight-eight engine was a refined version of a military-vehicle unit.
Buy his entire output, badged Rolls-Royce, was the deal, even though Rolls preferred three- or four-cylinder machines to the twin he was shown. The partnership was only incorporated in 1906.
Q 24Who modelled for the Spirit of Ecstasy, as the secretary and secret lover of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu?
Eleanor Thornton
Eleanor Thornton had already posed for the earlier mascot on Montagu's own car, a finger to her lips for the affair's secrecy. She drowned in 1915 when a U-boat sank the liner carrying the pair to India.
Q 25What did sculptor Charles Sykes call his mascot for Lord Montagu's 1909 Silver Ghost, a finger pressed to her lips?
The Whisper
The Whisper symbolised the secret affair between Montagu and his secretary, and it still sits in the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu. In 1911 Sykes reworked her into the figure every Rolls-Royce carries.
Q 26Tradition places the first meeting of Charles Rolls and Henry Royce, in May 1904, at which newly opened railway hotel?
The Midland
The Midland, opened in 1903 beside Manchester Central station, hosted the meeting of 4 May 1904, arranged by Henry Edmunds after he had shown Rolls his own Royce car.
Q 27Henry Royce built his first car by improving on which French two-cylinder he had bought and found wanting?
Decauville
Decauville, a second-hand 1901 model, fell short of Royce's standards, so he reworked it part by part into three prototype cars badged Royce, notably quieter than their rivals.
Q 28Which city's offer of cheap electricity won the first purpose-built Rolls-Royce factory in 1908, beating Coventry?
Derby
Derby's council offered the power deal for a 12.7-acre site on the southern edge of the city, and the firm's aero engines are still built there today. Car production left for Crewe in 1946.
Q 29Which managing director, who named and promoted the Silver Ghost, described himself as 'the hyphen in Rolls-Royce'?
Claude Johnson
Claude Johnson, first secretary of the Automobile Club, ran sales and the business while Royce built and Rolls raced, and he commissioned the Spirit of Ecstasy. He died in office in 1926.
Q 30What Battle of Britain fault did 'Miss Shilling's orifice', a restrictor in the Merlin's fuel line, help to cure?
Cutting out in a dive
Cutting out in a dive happened because negative g starved the Merlin's float carburettor for a moment. Engineer Beatrice Shilling's restrictor held the fuel in place until a better carburettor arrived.