Rolls-Royce's Hood Ornament Is Actually A Tribute To A Secret Affair
Rolls-Royce
is one of the few automakers left today that still uses a hood ornament
to adorn the front of its cars. It’s called the Spirit of Ecstasy—a
elegantly winged woman that who looks as though she’s experiencing a
constant headwind. She was, allegedly, based on an actual woman named
Eleanor Velasco Thornton.
This, according to Carfection, is how the story goes.
In
the early 1900s, John Walter Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu, the second
Baron Montagu of Beaulieu, commissioned a hood ornament for his
Rolls-Royce from an English sculptor named Charles Robinson Sykes. Sykes
modeled the ornament after Thornton, an actress and Montagu’s mistress.
Because of their secret relationship, the first mascot that Sykes
designed had a finger to her lips and was named “The Whisperer.”
(Jalopnik.com)
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