Shaquille O’Neal did not want to spend $400,000 on a car. He walked out of a Rolls-Royce dealership having bought three.
One of them, a silver 2004 Phantom, is now up for auction on Bring a Trailer. Bidding closes November 3.
Shaq has told the story himself. During his Lakers years, he wandered into a Rolls-Royce showroom wearing sweats, the uniform of a man nobody mistakes for a buyer.
“I like to spend money, but I don’t like to waste money,” O’Neal has said. Every time the salesman quoted a price, Shaq waved it off.
Then the salesman asked the question. “You’re asking about all these cars, can you afford them?”
That was the whole play. A four-time NBA champion who spent his career bullying defenders in the paint got baited by a guy on commission. O’Neal bought three Rolls-Royces on the spot, and the salesman walked away with a triple payday.
Somebody finally scored on Shaq, and it happened in a showroom.
The car has its own story. The 2004 model year marked the arrival of the Phantom VII, the first Rolls-Royce built under BMW ownership. It was the moment Goodwood stopped being a British relic and started cashing German checks.
It was also enormous. At launch, the Phantom stretched longer than a Ford Excursion, which explains why a 7-foot-1 center might find it agreeable. Yes, the driver’s seat goes back. Way back.
Under the long hood sits a 6.75-liter V-12, an enlarged version of the engine BMW put in the 760Li. It makes 453 horsepower, but horsepower was never the point.
The real number is 531 pound-feet of torque, with nearly 400 of those available from just 1,000 rpm. Paired with a six-speed automatic, the Phantom doesn’t accelerate so much as decide to be somewhere else.
BMW worked hard to out-British the British. Rear-hinged coach doors hide umbrellas. The wheel center caps stay upright so the RR logo never sits crooked, and the Spirit of Ecstasy retracts into the hood on command.
Inside, it’s walnut, soft leather, and deep-pile lambswool carpet. Rear passengers get picnic tables. Nobody in this car is expected to compromise on anything.
All of it was bought to win an argument.
Here’s where the legend and the odometer part ways. O’Neal has said he barely drove his three Rolls-Royces. This one shows 45,000 miles.
That’s not garage-queen mileage. Somebody along the way actually used this car, and the next owner inherits both the miles and the anecdote.
There’s a small irony in the venue, too. Bring a Trailer and Car and Driver, which surfaced the listing, both sit under the Hearst Autos umbrella. The company that turns old cars into content is doing exactly what it was built to do.
What the Phantom brings stays an open question until the hammer falls. Two decades and 45,000 miles have a way of humbling even the proudest sticker price.
Shaq paid full freight to make a point. The next owner gets the same car, the same lambswool, and the same story, almost certainly for far less than the man who refused to waste his money.
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