The Spirt of Ecstasy is known across the globe as a symbol of wealth, refinement and class. That’s because it adorns the bonnets of most Rolls-Royce cars, a brand which trades on being the reserve of the rich and sophisticated. But the story of how the Spirt of Ecstasy came to be is anything but sophisticated – although it does involve some very rich people.
For those who don’t know, the Spirit of Ecstasy – sometimes referred to as Eleanor, The Silver Lady or The Flying Lady – is the ‘winged’ woman who arches her back seductively over the grille of a Rolls-Royce. The wings are, in fact, her skimpy robe billowing in the wind. She can be hidden from sight at the touch of the button to prevent thieves from getting their grubby mitts on her solid silver curves, but she’s almost always there and has been for 110 years as of this week.
Her story begins with a richer-than-God Rolls-Royce customer called Baron Montagu of Beaulieu, the very same English gent who would go onto found the Beaulieu Motor Museum, so we have a lot to thank him for, although his wife probably wouldn’t agree as you’ll find out. Montagu was the proud owner of a 1909 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost but there was one thing he didn’t like about it: the bonnet wasn’t jazzy enough. It needed an ornament, he thought, and he knew just the chap to make one.
Enter Montagu’s long-time pal and famous sculptor Charles Robinson Sykes, who was commissioned to come up with a bonnet ornament fit for a Rolls-Royce. Sykes’ decided it should be a seductive woman, but he needed a muse, and for that he chose a beautiful lady called Eleanor Velasco Thornton. How did he know Eleanor? She was Baron Montagu’s secretary and secret mistress.
Eleanor Thornton
For those who knew Eleanor’s true relationship with Montagu the ornament designed by Sykes was very controversial, especially for the post-Victorian age. The original design features Eleanor scantily clad with what little she was wearing being blown from her body, as if the speed of the car was stripping her naked. In a daring nod to the affair he depicted Eleanor with her finger to her lips, symbolising the secret. It was called The Whisper, and only two castings from the original four are thought to have survived, one of them is on display at the Beaulieu Motor Museum today.
The Whisper
Eleanor began working for Montagu – full name John Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu – in 1902 when she joined as a secretary for Montagu’s magazine The Car Illustrated. They fell in love but their affair had to be kept strictly under wraps – known about only by an inner circle of Montagu’s friends – because of her lowly social status. That, and the fact Montagu had been married for 13 years already. Poor Eleanor was forced to give up a child in 1903 to avoid the scandal of the affair being exposed. It’s said while Eleanor never saw their daughter, called Joan, Montagu visited her a number of times and even included her in his will.
Eleanor Thornton
The official Spirt of Ecstasy which is found on Rolls-Royce cars of today was still designed by Sykes but at the request of Rolls-Royce itself. Claude Johnson, the managing director of Roller in 1910, asked Sykes to design a new ornament which evoked the spirt of Nike, the Greek goddess, but Sykes decided he was wrong and thought Eleanor should still be the muse. So he modified his original design to make it look even more windswept and as if it was speeding along the road. And it stuck.
What happened to Eleanor? Like many a mistress’s story, it didn’t end well. She was sailing aboard a cruise liner, The SS Persia, with the object of her illicit love, Lord Montagu, when it was torpedoed by a German U-Boat somewhere off the south coast of Crete. The ship sunk to the depths and Eleanor drowned, although Montagu was found alive a few days later clinging to a life raft.
Despite being forced to live so much of her life in secret, the fame of The Spirit of Ecstasy means Eleanor is one of the most recognisable women in the world today.
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Keyword: Sex, cars and scandal: the tragic story behind Rolls-Royce’s Spirit of Ecstasy