Taylor referred to her Rolls as the “green goddess,” Mr. Ettinger said. The order form listed the color as “smoke green,” a color that, he added, complemented her eyes.

Of course, it has the unmistakable Rolls-Royce grille, topped by the equally unmistakable silver-goddess ornament on the hood. Of course, it has power steering — Rolls-Royce had introduced that as an option in the mid-1950s. Of course, it has power windows, another option at the time. Of course, it features a dashboard of exotic Carpathian elm burl wood. Of course, it has a 6.2-liter V-8 engine. (The fuel economy of that engine was listed at 12 miles a gallon in an early road test by The Motor, a British car magazine.)

But this Silver Cloud II had something no other Rolls-Royce had: a little love logo. The couple’s initials — E and E, for Elizabeth and Eddie — were discreetly painted on the doors.

Before long, Fisher was gone — the scandal kept gossip columnists pounding away at their typewriters for months — and so was the logo.

For a while, anyway, Fisher apparently still had the keys to the Rolls. Soon after rumors about a Taylor-Richard Burton affair began circulating, he drove it into either a bus or a streetcar in Rome. News accounts of exactly what happened varied. The car suffered a bashed-in fender. Fisher, unhurt, watched as the car was towed off. Then he walked to the studio where “Cleopatra” was being filmed for a lunch date with his soon-to-be ex-wife.