Rolls Royce Spirit of Ecstasy

Better than a ring.

The story of the Rolls-Royce.

It was a chilly winter morning in London in the year 1902 when John Montagu, a man of noble descent but with a perpetually empty wallet, decided to found Britains first car magazine, The Car Illustrated. His passion for the automobile drove him, and with the help of the talented illustrator Charles Sykes he turned his dream into reality. Sykes, a man with a keen eye for detail, had already built an impressive career as a sculptor and was the creative mind behind the magazines illustrations.

Around the same time, Montagu met a young woman named Eleanor Thornton. Eleanor worked as an assistant at the Automobile Club under the direction of Montagu's friend, Claude Johnson. She was not only exceptionally intelligent, but also enchantingly beautiful. Montagu, instantly in love, offered her a job as office manager at his magazine. Eleanor accepted the offer, and before long an intense and secret love affair blossomed between the aristocratic publisher and the young woman from South London.

In 1903 Eleanor became pregnant. The couple decided that the best thing for their baby would be to give her up for adoption. On the day of the birth, Eleanor held her daughter Joan for only a few seconds before handing her over to Montagu with the words: "Never speak the baby's name again." Montagu made sure that Joan received a good upbringing, albeit from a distance. He visited her regularly, but always in secret and under the name "Uncle John."

Meanwhile, Eleanor continued to lead her double life. By day she was Johnsons respectable assistant, but at night she transformed into an exotic dancer and nude model. It was during these nocturnal escapades that she came back into contact with Sykes, for whom she posed regularly. Inspired by her grace and beauty, Sykes created several works of art with Eleanor as his model.

In 1910, after Claude Johnson had become managing director of Rolls-Royce, he approached Sykes with a special commission. Johnson wanted a unique mascot for the radiator caps of Rolls-Royce cars, something that would embody the elegance and power of the brand. Inspired by the statue of the Nike of Samothrace in the Louvre, Johnson instructed Sykes to create something similar. Sykes, who had often traveled with Montagu in his Silver Ghost, decided that a delicate and ethereal figure suited the brand better. His muse, once again Eleanor, became the model for what would later become the Spirit of Ecstasy.