Rolls-Royce’s Spirit of Ecstasy Gets An Aerodynamic Makeover
The 110-year-old Spirit of Ecstacy, Rolls-Royce’s iconic hood ornament, gets a makeover as the automaker embarks on a new, electrified future.
Rolls-Royce says that this will be the Flying Lady’s most aerodynamic design, which took the clever design folks at West Sussex, UK a total of 830 hours of modelling and wind tunnel testing to finetune.
Most notably, the billowing robe, which is often mistaken for wings, gets a more realistic and aerodynamic shape, extending just slightly higher than the figurine’s head. The little lady is now shorter, a mere 82.73mm from its prior height of 100mm.
Even her stance has been altered: instead of having both feet together, one is in front and the other behind; her legs are bent against the wind as if needing to stabilise herself as the car moves faster and performs better than before, but her chest is held higher and prouder. (In the thirties, there was a kneeling version of the lady to complement sports saloons and avoid obstruction of the driver’s view.)
The new design will be first carried by Rolls-Royce’s first-ever electric vehicle, the Spectre, which has a drag coefficient of a mere 0.26, in part thanks to the new aerodynamic design of the hood ornament. By 2030, all Rolls-Royces will be electric.
Each Rolls-Royce hood ornament is made using the lost-wax casting method to create the detailed lines and crevices and is finished by hand, so no two Flying Ladies are ever the same.
