A stunning pre-war Rolls Royce with a royal connection will be amongst the highlights of the Bonhams Goodwood Members’ Meeting Sale.
The beautifully restored 1924 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost was originally custom-built for Lord Mountbatten, uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and second cousin once-removed of Queen Elizabeth II.
It features alterations designed by Mountbatten himself, including a raised, streamlined bonnet and a mechanical headlight dipping mechanism, along with the figure of a naval signaller replacing Rolls Royce’s iconic ‘Spirit of Ecstasy’ mascot on the bonnet.
The car changed hands several times following Mountbatten’s ownership, with no ownership records listed between 1939 and 1966, but it was then rediscovered in the South of France by the Oxford dental surgeon Captain Ralph Symmons and returned to British soil.
Symmons was unaware of the Silver Ghost’s aristocratic history until he found the original London registration beneath the later French plate. He then restored the car and took it to Lord Mountbatten’s home at Broadlands in Hampshire, where it was reunited with its original owner after more than 40 years.
A close friend of Mountbatten later acquired the car in 1978 and offered it to him on a permanent loan, but less than a year later he was killed, along with his grandson Nicolas and two others, when the Provisional IRA placed a bomb aboard his boat, the Shadow V.
Having since been restored by experts at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, the Rolls Royce has recently been displayed HM The Queen’s Sandringham residence in Norfolk, and is now expected to sell for £170,000-$230,000 ($240,000-$330,000).
The Bonhams Goodwood Members’ Meeting Sale takes place at the historic Goodwood race track on March 20.
