This is one of those stories in autodom, that HAS to be told, at least to someones thinking. While poking around, trying to find more stuff for the blog, I came upon the Rolls-Royce (always remember to hyphenate, its the last names of two men,)web page. There I discovered the official telling of the story of The Spirit of Ecstasy, otherwise known as The Flying Lady....you know, the hood ornament on every Rolls-Royce you've ever seen as it whizzed by on its way to Lord-knows-where.
Anyway, I tried to link straight to the page so you could read this little gem of an automotive campfire story for yourself, but apparently Rolls-Royce in their techno-wisdom has somehow made it so you CAN'T link to their page, you have to go to it yourself.
I'll save you the headache of trying to navigate through the page, and just tell the story, straight as it comes from the Rolls-Royce page.
"Romantic fantasies and whisperings sorround the history of the world's most instantly recognized motor car mascot, wistfully described by its creator, the sculptor Charles Sykes, as "A graceful little goddess, the Spirit of Ecstasy, who has selected road travel as her supreme delight and alighted upon the prow of a Rolls-Royce motor car to revel in the freshness of the air and the musical sound of her fluttering draperies."(are YOU laughing at this?)
The very first Rolls-Royce motor cars did not feature radiator mascots, but by 1910 the company was concerned that some owners were affixing "inappropriate" ornaments. (I'm thinkin this mostly means that the Texas oil barons who bought them were putting horns on them like they do on their Cadillacs these days) Claude Johnson, then managing director of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, was asked to see to the commissioning of something more suitably dignified and graceful.
He turned to Charles Sykes, a young artist friend and a graduate of London's Royal College of Art. As it happened, Sykes had already presented to Lord Montagu of Beaulieu (father of the present baron, whoever he may be,) a personal mascot for his Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost. It was coyly called "The Whisperer," and had been modeled on the graceful shape of Eleanor Thornton, secretary to his Lordship and (only to be whispered {yeah.}) his mistress besides.
Sykes' brief from Claude Johnson had been to evoke something of the spirit of the mythical beauty Nike, whose graceful image was to be admired in the Louvre, but Sykes was not so impressed. He felt that a more feminine representation might be apt. Almost certainly, it was again Miss Thornton whom he had in mind (can't get that girl off the brain, can he?! she musta been better than Monica was to Bill--or at least about the same) Certainly, the Spirit of Speed, as he named his first sculpture, has an uncanny resemblance to The Whisperer.
It was Claude Johnson who devised the more felicitous (great journalist I am.....definition, someone?!) of the Spirit of Ecstasy, although in the United States the mascot is called The Flying Lady (God forbid we Americans should ever embrace uniformity. and I suppose if she was called The Flying Nun, she'd have looked more like Sally Fields, in which case Ms. Fields wouldn't have griped that it took her so long to get an Oscar--she wouldn't have cared because her image would already have been immortalized. But wait;that would have required her heyday to fall before the advent of motion pictures with sound. Never mind.) Either way, she was cast in bronze, a figure some 7 inches high, and she went into production in 1911. (seven inches?! is this discussion getting more phallic as we go, or is it just me? I know a lot of guys who'd like to talk about having 7 inches of polished bronze.)
Today's Spirit of Ecstasy stands at 3 inches (IT'S SHRINKING!!! EYYYYYYYYYAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!! before you know it, it'll be reduced to a hologram stick-on) and, for safety, she is mounted on a spring-loaded mechanism designed to retract instantly into the radiator shell if struck from any direction (a genuine comfort to image-conscious slumlords)
And now, it seems, on the new, horrendously-expensive-even by Rolls-Royce-standards EX101, the Spirit of Ecstasy is lead crystal, perhaps by Lalique if I'm not led astray by the way it's frosted.
It is a misconception that the mascots are made from solid silver(no, thats the rest of the car.) Over the years, several different metals have been used, but never silver. In the early days, white metal was used to fashion the shape. Now it is highly polished stainless steel.
And there you have it. Stanley Kubrick and Jackie Collins combined could not concieve a story so rife with money, sex and good old-fashioned Rule Britannia. Yeeha!