Start with what the Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph is: a 4-door saloon with 5.4 , built from 1998 to 2002, when airbags, anti-lock brakes and Japanese build quality became the world standard. What it meant takes a little longer. The shape is credited to Steve Harper under Graham Hull.
The story
The Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph and its extended wheelbase version, the Rolls-Royce Park Ward, are full-size luxury automobiles manufactured and marketed by Rolls-Royce Motors from 1998 to 2002. The Silver Seraph (and its Bentley Arnage twin) were launched in March 1998, at the Geneva Motor Show.
They replaced the Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit and the slightly longer Silver Spur, made from 1980 through 1997. Silver Seraph production ended in late 2002, when Volkswagen's marketing licence for the Rolls-Royce marque were handed over to owner BMW, who began to manufacture Rolls-Royce cars (initially the Phantom VII) from 2003, under a new corporation, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. Production of the Bentley-badged Arnage version continued into the late 2000s, which even involved a return of the (much updated) old 6.75L V8 Rolls-Royce engine.
What is underneath
The engine is 5.4 . On the scales it comes to 2350 kg. Drive goes through a 5-speed ZF 5HP30 automatic. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 122.7 in / 132.5 in (Park Ward). These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Its place in the line
In the Rolls-Royce line-up the Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph has a clear place: it replaced the Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit (Silver Seraph) / Rolls-Royce Silver Spur (Park Ward); it handed the line to the Rolls-Royce Ghost (Silver Seraph) / Rolls-Royce Ghost / Rolls-Royce Ghost EWB (Park Ward) / Rolls-Royce Phantom (seventh generation) / Rolls-Royce Phantom VII (Park Ward); the factory was Crewe, England, United Kingdom. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Peugeot 206, the Chevrolet Silverado, the Ford Focus. Nearby in the Rolls-Royce catalogue sit the Rolls-Royce 100EX and the Rolls-Royce 102EX.