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50 free Rolls-Royce trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Rolls-Royce is really a pair of stories. One is a luxury marque born from a 1904 handshake between an aristocratic racing driver and a self-taught engineer from a flour-milling family, whose Silver Ghost was called the best motor car in the world and whose Phantoms have carried monarchs, presidents and a Beatle. The other is an aero-engine firm that built the Merlin, went bust over a turbofan in 1971, and today powers airliners, submarines and, perhaps one day, a lunar base. These 50 questions cover both. They run from the founders and the first tiny twin-cylinder to the Spirit of Ecstasy's secret, the Goodwood factory and the BMW-Volkswagen tug of war of 1998, then cross to the jets: the Merlin's wartime quirks, the turbojets named for waterways, the bankruptcy, the Harrier and Concorde, and the giant UltraFan. It suits a pub quiz round, a petrolhead's birthday, or anyone who has wondered why the mascot ducks into the bonnet when touched. Play on your phone with instant answers and explanations, or print it for a group.
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Q 01After the Silver Ghost's 15,000-mile trial of 1907, an RAC strip-down found repairs costing roughly how much?
About £2
About £2 was the bill, precisely £2 2s 7d, where any rival of the day would have needed a full overhaul. The firm's managing director had run the car non-stop around Britain to prove the point.
Q 02The RB211's carbon-fibre Hyfil fan blades failed a 1970 test when what was fired into them at high speed?
A chicken carcass
A chicken carcass shattered the Hyfil fan in the bird-ingestion test, forcing a switch to heavier titanium blades. The cost overruns that followed pushed Rolls-Royce into receivership in February 1971.
Q 03In 2023 the UK Space Agency funded Rolls-Royce to design a small nuclear power plant for use where?
On the Moon
On the Moon is where the plant would run, under a $3.52 million agreement with the UK Space Agency to develop a micro-reactor for a future lunar base.
Q 04What do the RR monograms on a modern Rolls-Royce Phantom's wheel hubs do as the wheels turn?
Stay upright
Stay upright is what they do: each hub badge sits on its own bearing, so the monogram reads the right way up even at speed. The coachlines down the flanks are still painted by hand.
Q 05Lady Penelope's FAB 1 in Thunderbirds was a modified Rolls-Royce with how many wheels?
Six
Six wheels, two pairs at the front, were designer Derek Meddings's way of making the car look unreal; he admitted it was purely aesthetic. Rolls-Royce approved the design and supplied a genuine Spirit of Ecstasy for the puppet-scale model.
Q 06In the 1964 film Goldfinger, how does Auric Goldfinger smuggle gold out of England in his Rolls-Royce?
As its bodywork
As its bodywork: the gold is cast into the car's panels and driven to Switzerland, which is why the villain's number plate reads AU 1, the chemical symbol for gold. The car was a 1937 Phantom III.
Q 07On Queen Elizabeth II's Rolls-Royce state limousines, the Spirit of Ecstasy was swapped for a figure of whom?
Saint George
Saint George slaying the dragon rode on the bonnet whenever the Queen used her Phantom VI limousines, which carry no number plates. They were the principal official vehicles until two Bentleys arrived in 2002.
Q 08Why did Rolls-Royce change its RR monogram from red to black in 1933, contrary to the popular legend?
Clashed with paintwork
Clashed with paintwork is the real reason: red sometimes fought the coachwork colours clients chose. Royce died later that year, so the change is often misread as mourning, but it came first.
Q 09Charles Rolls died at Bournemouth in July 1910, the first Briton to be killed doing what?
Flying an aeroplane
Flying an aeroplane killed him when the tail of his Wright Flyer broke off during a display, making him the first Briton to die in a powered-aircraft crash. A month earlier he had flown non-stop to France and back.
Q 10Since HMS Valiant in 1966, what has Rolls-Royce supplied to every one of the Royal Navy's nuclear submarines?
Its reactor
Its reactor: every British nuclear submarine since HMS Valiant has used a Rolls-Royce pressurised water reactor. The first boat, HMS Dreadnought of 1963, ran on an American Westinghouse unit instead.
Q 11What happens to the Spirit of Ecstasy on every Rolls-Royce built since 2003 if the figure is struck?
Retracts into the radiator
Retracts into the radiator shell instantly on a spring-loaded mount, from whichever direction she is hit, as a pedestrian-safety measure. She has also been offered in gold plate and, until EU lighting rules intervened, illuminated crystal.
Q 12What does a modern Rolls-Royce keep in compartments built into each rear door panel, coated in Teflon to dry faster?
Umbrellas
Umbrellas, Teflon-coated so they and their compartments dry out quickly, slide out whenever a door is opened, a fixture since the 2003 Phantom. A rear door left open as you pull away brakes the car to walking pace.
Q 13Rolls-Royce's Boat Tail of 2021, a trio of commissions, was reported as the priciest new car ever at roughly what?
Q 21In September 1914 the Admiralty requisitioned every available Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost chassis to build what?
Armoured cars
Armoured cars with a rotating Vickers machine-gun turret went to the Royal Naval Air Service, and a squadron later served Lawrence of Arabia against the Turks. Some were still fighting in Egypt in 1940.
Q 22Only 18 Rolls-Royce Phantom IVs were built between 1950 and 1956; to which buyers alone were they sold?
Royalty and heads of state
Royalty and heads of state were the only customers judged worthy: the first went to Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, and Spain's Franco ordered three. Its straight-eight engine was a refined version of a military-vehicle unit.
Q 23The first Rolls-Royce of 1904, the 10 hp sold for £395, had an engine with how many cylinders?
$28 million
$28 million was the speculated price, then the world's most expensive street-legal new car until the 2023 Droptail topped it. Each rear deck opens butterfly-style onto a parasol, cocktail tables and two fridges chilled for champagne.
Q 14The Cullinan, the Rolls-Royce SUV launched in 2018, is named after the largest gem-quality example ever found of what?
A diamond
A diamond, the 3,100-carat Cullinan, gave its name to a car that US tax law classes as a station wagon, so it pays gas-guzzler tax. It became the marque's second best-seller ever.
Q 15John Lennon's 1965 Rolls-Royce limousine was famously repainted in 1967 in what base colour, covered in Romany swirls?
Yellow
Yellow latex paint and artist Steve Weaver's floral swirls cost £290 and were finished the day before Sgt. Pepper came out. The car sold for $2,299,000 in 1985, then an auction record, and now lives in a Canadian museum.
Q 16Which magazine, not Rolls-Royce itself, coined 'the best car in the world' for the 40/50 model in 1907?
The Autocar
The Autocar coined the phrase and the firm has traded on it ever since. The 40/50 became the Silver Ghost, a name the press borrowed from a single silver-painted demonstrator and applied to all 7,874 built.
Q 17What does Rolls-Royce call the rear-hinged openings at the back of the Phantom, rejecting the usual 'suicide' nickname?
Coach doors
Coach doors have been offered since the first Phantom of 1925, and the modern car brakes itself to walking pace if one is still open when you drive off.
Q 18The Starlight Headliner in a Rolls-Royce threads over 1,500 fibre-optic points into the ceiling to mimic what?
A night sky
A night sky full of stars appears overhead, an option already offered on the 2008 Phantom Coupé before it became a signature of the 2017 Phantom VIII.
Q 19Instead of a rev counter, the dial on a modern Rolls-Royce Phantom's instrument panel shows the driver what?
Power reserve
Power reserve, the share of the engine's power not being used, is displayed where other cars put a tachometer, a quiet boast that the 6.75-litre engine is loafing.
Q 20Rolls-Royce jet engines such as the Derwent, Avon and Spey all take their names from what?
British rivers
British rivers suited the idea of continuous flow, water through a valley and air through a turbine, so the policy began with the first production jet in 1943. The piston engines had taken birds of prey instead.
Two
Two cylinders, water-cooled, drove a car that Rolls himself thought too small; only 16 were built before the firm decided a twin was beneath the marque. Four survive, one of them in the Science Museum collection.
Q 24Nicholas Grimshaw's Goodwood plant for Rolls-Royce is hidden from the road partly by Britain's largest what?
Living roof
Living roof is the term for its 3.5 hectares of sedum, planted so the factory, opened on 1 January 2003, cannot be seen from the road. Grimshaw also designed the Eden Project in Cornwall.
Q 25Under the December 1904 agreement with Henry Royce, what did Charles Rolls's London dealership undertake to do?
Buy his entire output
Buy his entire output, badged Rolls-Royce, was the deal, even though Rolls preferred three- or four-cylinder machines to the twin he was shown. The partnership was only incorporated in 1906.
Q 26Who modelled for the Spirit of Ecstasy, as the secretary and secret lover of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu?
Eleanor Thornton
Eleanor Thornton had already posed for the earlier mascot on Montagu's own car, a finger to her lips for the affair's secrecy. She drowned in 1915 when a U-boat sank the liner carrying the pair to India.
Q 27What was sculptor Charles Sykes's 1909 mascot for Lord Montagu's Silver Ghost called, a finger pressed to her lips?
The Whisper
The Whisper symbolised the secret affair between Montagu and his secretary, and it still sits in the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu. Two years later Sykes reworked her into the figure every Rolls-Royce carries.
Q 28Tradition places the first meeting of Charles Rolls and Henry Royce, in May 1904, at which newly opened railway hotel?
The Midland
The Midland, opened in 1903 beside Manchester Central station, still claims the meeting of 4 May 1904, though one Royce biography argues the pair more likely met in refreshment rooms at another Manchester station.
Q 29Henry Royce built his first car in 1904 by improving on which French two-cylinder he had bought and found wanting?
Decauville
Decauville, a 1901 model that would not even start when Royce collected it, was stripped and redrawn part by part into three cars badged simply Royce. He dropped its 40-pound bronze warning bell to save weight.
Q 30Which city's offer of cheap electricity won the first purpose-built Rolls-Royce factory in 1908, beating Coventry?
Derby
Derby's council offered the power deal for a 12.7-acre site on the southern edge of the city, and the firm's aero engines are still built there today. Car production left for Crewe in 1946.