ROLLS-ROYCE AND BENTLEY RALLY
News
Kellner ‘Sweptail’ Rolls-Royce (Gareth Tarr).
I
n the week that Rolls-Royce announced the Cullinan, its first SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle),
the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts’ Club held a rally at Brooklands with around 100 cars on display along the Finishing Straight. The Cullinan, named after the world’s largest raw diamond discovered over 100 years ago, aims to be the most luxurious car of its type on the market and the cars on display at Brooklands illustrated the standards that the new vehicle will have to live up to. Several Bentleys from the marque’s period of Rolls-Royce ownership were also at the meeting. In former times Rolls-Royce only supplied a
chassis – on which a coach-builder manufactured a body to the owner’s specification. In the main, of course, these were British coach-builders, who did much in the 1920s and 30s to set a style that distinguished the British car from its foreign cousins. But this was not exclusively so and a Phantom II by Parisian carrosserie Kellner was
notable for its distinctively sloping rear bodywork, called ‘Sweptail’, a name used last year for a one-off special based on a Wraith. The car was built for the Princesse de Faucigny-Lucinge, and in the Paddock was another car with a distinguished owner; the Nawab Wali-ud-Dowla of Hydrabad. This 1923 20hp model had an aluminium, barrel-sided tourer body by Barker. Many of these cherished cars remained with
their owners for a long period of time. Indeed, 1934 must have been a particularly good vintage. At Brooklands there were two 20/25hp models from that year with long initial ownerships; a cabriolet by Martin Walter of Folkstone that was part of the Oakes family of Skipness Castle, Scotland for 72 years and the H J Mulliner bodied Sedanca sold to Alfred Dickson (one of the owners of the Yates Wine Lodge business) that spent over 40 years of service with the family. Current owners are equally proud of their cars;
The Nawab Wali-ud-Dowla of Hydrabad’s Barker bodied 20hp (Gareth Tarr).
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