25/05/2026
The 9.0-litre Unicorn: Rowan Atkinson’s V16 Rolls-Royce. This is Rowan Atkinson's Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupé. And it might be the most extraordinary car in Britain.
Most people know about his McLaren F1 with 41,000 miles on it. But his most extraordinary car is not the F1. It is this. A Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupé with a 9.0 litre V16 engine. In the early 2000s BMW and Rolls-Royce built a handful of experimental V16 engines by joining two V8s together. The project was shelved. The engines went into a warehouse.
Then the second Johnny English film went into production. Atkinson had put over 80,000 miles on his personal Phantom. He asked Rolls-Royce if they could use this engine for the car in the film and they said yes. They pulled a V16 from storage, installed it into a bespoke Coupé for the film, and when filming finished he bought the car.
Three or four of these engines exist in total. The others are still owned by Rolls-Royce. This is the only one on public roads in private hands. The only other road car currently launching with a V16 is the Bugatti Tourbillon. Determining the value of this car is impossible. It is a one-of-one piece of history that exists purely because a manufacturer rewarded a genuine fanatic.
Not an investment car in the conventional sense. Something rarer than that.
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