GAME OF THRONES

In the 1970s, Rolls-Royce's claim to the world's best car' title put it directly in the crosshairs of ascendant luxury rivals from Jaguar and Cadillac

-  SIMON HUCKNALL

If you're going to steal, you rob a bank not a grocery store, so I'd rather go after a Rolls..." That was General Motors' design chief Bill Mitchell talking to Autocar back in December 1975. Blatant and provocative those words might have been, but they were also a statement of intent. For years Cadillac, GM's halo brand, had looked like the definition of excess to European eyes, as Mitchell conceded: "We've overdone things - lots of sheet metal, thick doors, overhangs. [But] we're doing a better job now." And if the new Seville was anything to go by, he was. What's more, this pretender to the 'world's best car' throne was coming to Britain.

The audacity! You uld almost hear the bone china being dropped in Crewe's boardroom when Rolls-Royce's management received the memo. There clearly was a whiff of Roller in the way the Seville looked, too. It aped the new Silver Shadow II's key dimensions, being just half an inch shorter, at 203.9in, and less than half an inch wider, at 71.8in. More than that, its restrained and elegant lines, combined with a modest 5.7-litre small-block V8, made it, so Cadillac believed, a proper challenger for Rolls-Royce's freshly revised Shadow.

The Seville was no 'grey' import, either. Lendrum & Hartman of Hammersmith, west London, was given a quota of 150 Sevilles by GM in 1977 to satisfy British demand. L&H took 60 hours to prepare each car for buyers in the UK, including a conversion to right-hand drive. That brought the total cost of each fully loaded Seville to £14,888, and L&H would guarantee delivery within three months. In other words, £10,000 less than the Shadow II, and with 15 months less wait for your new car.