In an era where luxury often feels mass-produced, two peculiar tales involving Rolls-Royce vehicles have captured Britain’s imagination this spring — and they couldn’t be more different. One’s submerged in an art deco swimming pool (yes, really), while another’s carrying a solid gold coffin through the streets of Manchester. Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.
Let’s start with that waterlogged Phantom. Plymouth’s historic Tinside Lido recently became the most unlikely of automotive showcases when Rolls-Royce decided to celebrate their flagship model’s centenary by… well, dropping it in the drink. Council leader Tudor Evans called it “pure Plymouth magic,” though one suspects the insurance adjusters might have used different terminology.
The art deco pool — a remnant of Britain’s more optimistic architectural past — served as an oddly perfect backdrop for this automotive aquatics display. Regular swimmers even got to share the water with the submerged luxury car, creating what must be one of 2025’s most surreal photo opportunities. (Wonder what the chlorine does to that Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament?)
Meanwhile, up in Manchester, a Rolls-Royce of a different sort has been turning heads. Frank Thompson, a 69-year-old patriarch from the Traveller community, made his final journey in spectacular fashion — accompanied by what his family describes as a “six-figure solid gold coffin.” The procession, which wound through Manchester and Nottingham for a week, offered a striking reminder that luxury means different things to different people.
Thompson’s story reads like a particularly British version of the American Dream. Starting as a door-to-door driveway salesman, he built himself into a successful businessman through sheer determination and entrepreneurial spirit. “He taught so many of them to be business-minded,” shared a family friend, though you won’t find his methods in any MBA textbook.
Perhaps most telling was the friend’s insistence that Thompson “was never a flash man, believe it or not.” There’s something quintessentially British about that statement — the need to deflect from obvious displays of wealth, even when organizing a funeral procession that wouldn’t look out of place in ancient Egypt.
The gold coffin itself — specially ordered from abroad and requiring weeks to arrive — speaks volumes about how different communities express success and respect. While corporate Britain celebrates with avant-garde photoshoots in swimming pools, the Traveller community honors their dead with magnificent displays of achievement that would make the pharaohs blush.
Back in Plymouth, that waterlogged Phantom continues to draw curious onlookers. The city’s marketing team must be beside themselves — it’s not every day your local lido becomes a talking point for luxury car enthusiasts worldwide. Though one can’t help but wonder what Frank Thompson would have made of it all.
These parallel stories reveal how Rolls-Royce transcends its role as mere transportation. Whether it’s making waves (literally) in a Devon lido or leading a week-long funeral procession, the marque continues to capture imaginations and embody aspirations — albeit in increasingly unexpected ways. After all, who’d have thought a century-old car brand would end up both underwater and carrying solid gold into the great beyond?
Mind you, given Britain’s current cost-of-living crisis, there’s something almost refreshingly absurd about both displays. Yet they remind us that luxury, at its core, isn’t just about price tags — it’s about making statements that echo long after the moment has passed.
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