• Log In
  • Become A Subscriber
  • News
  • Features
    • Special Features
    • Moss Special
    • Photography
    • Featured Editorials
    • Racecar Features
    • Roadcar Features
  • Race
    • Racecar Mag.
      • News
      • Features
      • Profile
      • Interview
      • Racecar Gallery
    • Columns
      • First Turn
      • Fast Lines
      • Fabulous Fifties
      • Heroes
      • Legends Speak
      • Stirling Speaks
      • Greatest Racecars
      • Last Lap
    • Profiles
      • Grand Prix History
      • Can-Am Racing
      • Grand Prix Cars
      • Mille Miglia
      • Race Profiles
      • Racecar Profiles
      • Driver Profiles
    • More
      • Art History
      • Fast Exposure
      • Hidden Treasure
      • Hot Laps
      • Time Capsule
      • Market Guide
      • The Golden Age
      • Hard Drive
  • Road
    • Roadcar Mag.
      • News
      • Features
      • Profile
      • Interview
    • Columns
      • From The Editor
      • By Design
      • Driven
      • Flashback
      • Roadcar Gallery
      • Roadcar Video
    • More
      • Roadcar Articles
      • Roadcar Features
      • Roadcar Interviews
      • Roadcar News
      • Roadcar Profiles
  • Brands
    • A to C
      • Alfa Romeo
      • Alpine
      • Auburn
      • Audi
      • Austin
      • Aston Martin
      • Bentley
      • BMW
      • Bugatti
      • Buick
      • Cadillac
      • Chevrolet
      • Chrysler
    • D to L
      • Dodge
      • Duesenberg
      • Ferrari
      • Fiat
      • Ford
      • Hispano Suiza
      • Honda
      • Koenigsegg
      • Jaguar
      • Lagonda
      • Lamborghini
      • Lancia
      • Lexus
      • Lincoln
      • Lola
      • Lotus
    • K to R
      • Maserati
      • Mazda
      • McLaren
      • Mercedes
      • MG
      • Mini
      • Mitsubishi
      • Morgan
      • Nissan
      • Packard
      • Pagani
      • Porsche
      • Renault
      • Rimac
      • Rolls-Royce
    • S to Z
      • SCG
      • Shelby
      • Spyker
      • Subaru
      • Sunbeam
      • Toyota
      • Triumph
      • Vauxhall
      • Volkswagen
      • Volvo
  • Events
  • Cars
    • Iconic Cars
    • SCD Car Profiles
    • VRR Car Profiles
    • Car Profiles
    • Garage & Collection Profiles
    • People Profiles
  • Market
    • Auctions Hub
    • Buyer Guides
    • Cars for Sale
  • For Sale
    • Cars for Sale
    • Dealer Showcase
  • Members
    • Become Member
    • Premium Content
    • Member Help
    • Free Newsletter
Reading
Rolls-Royce Celebrates Centenary of the “Twenty”
ShareTweet
1926 Rolls Royce 20hp original bodied Baker Tourer. Photo: Paul Pennell Collection
Roadcar News

Rolls-Royce Celebrates Centenary of the “Twenty”

 VR Staff

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars marks the centenary of the legendary 20 H.P., known to the world simply as the ‘Twenty’, launched on October 6, 1922. Designed by Sir Henry Royce, it ranks among the most important and influential models ever produced by the marque. As the first Rolls-Royce specifically intended for the owner-driver, rather than predominately for chauffeured use, it is a direct ancestor of today’s Ghost, Wraith, Dawn and Cullinan. And in setting the mechanical template for generations of Rolls-Royce motor cars that followed it, the ‘Twenty’ also has historical parallels with the forthcoming Spectre.

LA BELLE EPOQUE

In 1906, Rolls-Royce introduced the 40/50 H.P. – better known as the Silver Ghost. On the strength of its near-silent engine, flawless reliability and mighty feats of endurance, this epochal motor car earned the title of ‘the best car in the world’. It also established a new ‘single-model’ policy in place of the company’s previous practice of offering several different models concurrently. This proved a financially prudent strategy up to the outbreak of the Great War in 1914.

For the next four years, Rolls-Royce devoted itself to military projects, including an armored version of the Silver Ghost and a series of magnificent aero engines. But the end of hostilities, in 1918, revealed an entirely new world, in which the pre-War socio-economic, political and cultural orders had been utterly transformed. For Rolls-Royce, the shift from war footing to peacetime meant there was now huge excess capacity at its Derby works, which by 1919 employed some 8,000 workers.

1928 ROLLS-ROYCE 20 H.P
1928 ROLLS-ROYCE 20 H.P

A CAR FOR A CHANGED WORLD

Even before the Armistice in 1918, Henry Royce foresaw the need for a smaller car to counter a likely reduction in sales of the larger 40/50 H.P. chassis. Visionary that he was, Royce anticipated – correctly – that many Rolls-Royce owners would find themselves unable to recruit, retain or afford the substantial domestic staff they had employed before the War. The option of a motor car that required neither the laborious and costly weekly maintenance demanded by a Silver Ghost, nor a chauffeur to drive it, would, he reasoned, be an attractive proposition.

Two years later the company directors agreed with him. In 1920, Royce transferred his engineering skills from ‘designing’ a smaller car to ‘manufacturing’ it. This decision was underpinned both by the need to take up the remaining oversupply at the Derby factory, where the workforce had already been reduced to 2,000, and to supply a car that would be better suited to some customers’ post-war needs than the 40/50 H.P..

Royce instinctively understood that, despite their now more straitened circumstances, these owners were accustomed to Rolls-Royce standards of excellence and would expect nothing less from a new model, regardless of its size and specification. The company therefore went to great lengths to reassure them about the proposed 20 H.P., stating that ‘under no circumstances would the standards of excellence maintained in their products be diminished’. In September 1920, Royce confidently informed the Board he was satisfied ‘that the standard of excellence of production was maintained’.

1922 ROLLS-ROYCE 20H.P. AND SIR HENRY ROYCE
1922 ROLLS-ROYCE 20H.P. AND SIR HENRY ROYCE

THE ‘TWENTY’

On October 6, 1922, Rolls-Royce unveiled its new ‘small horsepower’ car. Its straight-six cylinder, 3.1-liter engine was less than half the size of the Silver Ghost’s 7.5-liter unit. However, the new model also weighed around 30% less than its larger sibling. This, combined with other advances in engineering design since the Silver Ghost’s debut in 1906, meant the performance gap between them was narrower than the raw numbers might suggest.

Indeed, it was immediately obvious that the new 20 H.P., or simply the ‘Twenty’ as it quickly became known, represented a huge technical leap forward. The lightness of its controls and the performance of its steering, braking and suspension systems made the Silver Ghost – though still superior to its direct competitors – seem rather outdated by comparison.

1929 ROLLS-ROYCE 20 H.P.
1929 ROLLS-ROYCE 20 H.P.

These qualities also rapidly established the ‘Twenty’ as a firm favorite among both established Rolls-Royce devotees and those new customers to whom a larger car of aging design did not appeal – especially where the purchase price and ongoing running costs were important considerations.

Owners were happy to share their enthusiasm for the new model. In letters to the motoring press, one praised it as ‘a charming piece of mechanism’ while another declared, ‘I have never handled anything as sweet-running’. A company advertisement quoted an expert assessment of the car as ‘everything a motorist can want… motoring with a high degree of refinement and its simplicity of construction will delight the driver’. After taking delivery of his car, a contented owner wrote to the company from his home in France: ‘I drove my 20 H.P. here from Liverpool and am very satisfied with the running of the engine, not having to change gear between Liverpool and Versailles’.

1923 ROLLS-ROYCE 20 H.P.
1923 ROLLS-ROYCE 20 H.P.

WEIGHTY ISSUES

Like all Rolls-Royce models of the era, the ‘Twenty’ was produced as a ‘rolling chassis’, on which owners commissioned bespoke bodywork from an independent coachbuilder. Royce intended that it should primarily be an owner-driver car and hoped the coachbuilders would keep their creations’ size and weight as low as possible.

However, he was unable to change the habits of a lifetime among some customers. Many ‘Twenty’ owners persisted in specifying their preferred style of solid, formal coachwork that was both much heavier than required and produced greater wind resistance. To Royce’s understandable irritation, these massive, overbuilt bodies inevitably compromised performance.

Ever the pragmatist, Royce knew there was only one way to improve the weight‑to‑performance ratio. In 1929, the ‘Twenty’ was supplanted by the 20/25 H.P., powered by an enlarged capacity engine. Even this did not fully solve the problem and in 1935, Royce produced the 25/30 H.P. with a 4.25-litre powerplant. The ‘small horsepower’ era finally came to an end with the Wraith of 1938. These later iterations were all direct developments of the ‘Twenty’, and today add further lustre to its record and reputation.

1924 ROLLS-ROYCE 20 H.P.
1924 ROLLS-ROYCE 20 H.P.

 A LASTING INFLUENCE…

The ‘Twenty’ had a profound influence on Rolls-Royce long after production ceased in 1929, by which time no fewer than 2,940 examples had been built. In particular, the straight‑six cylinder engine – with detachable cylinder head and overhead valves – would provide the template for Rolls-Royce engines for the next 30 years. Open the bonnet of any six‑cylinder Rolls-Royce right up to the Silver Cloud model (1955-9) and it is recognisably the same design, albeit with many internal improvements. And when the by-now venerable Silver Ghost was replaced by the new Phantom in 1925, its engine also adopted the essential Twenty pattern.

Tags
Brand (Rolls-Royce)

Get Our Free Weekly Newsletter

We bring you all the latest from the world of vintage and classic cars each week. News, auctions, events, vintage racing and more.

VR Staff
Casey M. Annis is the Founder and Editor of Vintage Road & Racecar magazine, as well as Editor of Alfa Owner, The Oily Rag and BMW Ultimate Classic magazines. He founded Parabolica Publishing in 1997 after a career in neurobiology. Along with his passion for automobiles, Casey is a long distance open-ocean paddleboard racer who’s competed over 10 times in the 32-mile Catalina to Manhattan Beach race and the 32-mile Molokai to Oahu race. Casey still contributes and writes about the world of vintage road and racecars and edits and curates the content for this website.
Related

Porsche Fans Unite at the 2025 Air|Water

25C0091_009 Mercedes-Benz AG - Mercedes-Benz Classic Communications

Le Mans Winner Jochen Mass Passes: Age 78

Marketplace: 1972 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 “Daytona”

Patrick GOSLING

McLaren W1 Sub-Zero Testing

Top Gear Takes the New Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale for a Drive

2025 Hagerty Hill Climb at Shelsley Walsh

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

  • Free Newsletter
  • Contact Us
  • Paid Subscription
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • News
  • Cars For Sale
  • Special Feature
  • The Cars
  • Contact Us
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Subscribe
  • About Us
  • Advertising
  • Meet the Team
Copyright © 2025 A07 Online Media
  • News
  • Features
    • Special Features
    • Moss Special
    • Photography
    • Featured Editorials
    • Racecar Features
    • Roadcar Features
  • Race
    • Racecar Mag.
      • News
      • Features
      • Profile
      • Interview
      • Racecar Gallery
    • Columns
      • First Turn
      • Fast Lines
      • Fabulous Fifties
      • Heroes
      • Legends Speak
      • Stirling Speaks
      • Greatest Racecars
      • Last Lap
    • Profiles
      • Grand Prix History
      • Can-Am Racing
      • Grand Prix Cars
      • Mille Miglia
      • Race Profiles
      • Racecar Profiles
      • Driver Profiles
    • More
      • Art History
      • Fast Exposure
      • Hidden Treasure
      • Hot Laps
      • Time Capsule
      • Market Guide
      • The Golden Age
      • Hard Drive
  • Road
    • Roadcar Mag.
      • News
      • Features
      • Profile
      • Interview
    • Columns
      • From The Editor
      • By Design
      • Driven
      • Flashback
      • Roadcar Gallery
      • Roadcar Video
    • More
      • Roadcar Articles
      • Roadcar Features
      • Roadcar Interviews
      • Roadcar News
      • Roadcar Profiles
  • Brands
    • A to C
      • Alfa Romeo
      • Alpine
      • Auburn
      • Audi
      • Austin
      • Aston Martin
      • Bentley
      • BMW
      • Bugatti
      • Buick
      • Cadillac
      • Chevrolet
      • Chrysler
    • D to L
      • Dodge
      • Duesenberg
      • Ferrari
      • Fiat
      • Ford
      • Hispano Suiza
      • Honda
      • Koenigsegg
      • Jaguar
      • Lagonda
      • Lamborghini
      • Lancia
      • Lexus
      • Lincoln
      • Lola
      • Lotus
    • K to R
      • Maserati
      • Mazda
      • McLaren
      • Mercedes
      • MG
      • Mini
      • Mitsubishi
      • Morgan
      • Nissan
      • Packard
      • Pagani
      • Porsche
      • Renault
      • Rimac
      • Rolls-Royce
    • S to Z
      • SCG
      • Shelby
      • Spyker
      • Subaru
      • Sunbeam
      • Toyota
      • Triumph
      • Vauxhall
      • Volkswagen
      • Volvo
  • Events
  • Cars
    • Iconic Cars
    • SCD Car Profiles
    • VRR Car Profiles
    • Car Profiles
    • Garage & Collection Profiles
    • People Profiles
  • Market
    • Auctions Hub
    • Buyer Guides
    • Cars for Sale
  • For Sale
    • Cars for Sale
    • Dealer Showcase
  • Members
    • Become Member
    • Premium Content
    • Member Help
    • Free Newsletter
All Access
  • Free Newsletter
Start typing to see results or hit ESC to close
Featured (Racecar Feature) Events All The Market (Auctions & Market) The Market (Auctions) Featured (Vintage Car Racing)
See all results

Get Our Free Weekly Newsletter

We bring you all the latest from the world of vintage and classic cars each week. News, auctions, events, vintage racing and more.