Rolls-Royce’s The Flying Lady

January 13, 2008

“The Flying Lady”, which has been adorning the hood of Rolls-Royce cars for almost a century now, is one of the most exotic, if not the most exotic, car mascots in the world.

The silver adornment, also known as The Spirit of Ecstasy, is the creation of sculptor Charles Robinson Sykes and modelled after a real woman of bewitching beauty, Eleanor Valesco Thornton.

Eleanor Thornton, the commoner who lived during the tail-end of Victorian-era England, had fallen in love with a noble, Lord John Walter Edward-Scott-Montagu, who fell in love with her equally as much.

Their relationship — Eleanor Thornton was Lord Montagu’s secretary — went on secretly for over a decade.

To cut the story short, Lord Montagu ordered Sykes, a sculptor, to create a special mascot for his Silver Ghost Rolls-Royce — a figurine depicting a young woman and Eleanor Thornton was chosen as the model. Lord Montagu put the figurine on top of the car’s radiator hood.

But this was not to be the one shown here. Lord Montagu later commissioned Sykes to create another mascot after the earlier one become so fashionable that others had also adorned their cars with mascots, some vulgar.

Then the Spirit of Ecstasy was created and it had since become the official mascot for Rolls-Royce cars.

Blogger’s note: This article is written based on information from “The Spirit of Ecstasy“. Picture taken by yours truly in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah on Borneo Island at the 2004 Borneo Rolls-Royce tour.

Posted in Still life Macro