When you picture a Rolls-Royce, you may envisage a serious stately home in the English countryside: horses, hounds, and a dreamy rainy mist accentuating the statuesque lines of the iconic car. Well, there is a brace of two Rolls-Royces about to go up for auction that have enjoyed such a life. Born for shuttling between townhouse and country seat, this duo is both iconic and thoroughbred.
The cars? The 1937 Phantom III Sedanca de Ville and 1937 Phantom III Special Henley Coupe. They’re both ready for their big debut at this year’s first New York City installment of the world famous car convention, Retromobile, and Gooding Christie’s debut at said classic and collector car convention. Just weeks away, in November, the pair is being sold separately, without reserve.
The 1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom III Sedance de Ville is among the finest examples of its kind in existence. Both of these cars come from the ownership of Lord Bamford, a distinguished British industrialist and collector. The Phantom III exemplifies the stylistic mandate at the time: to make incredibly sporting closed cars, while never sacrificing elegance. This particular model was built by Park Ward.
The design features helmet front fenders, trailed by low valences, as well as a raked windshield. The car also has delightful period details, like Ewart wheel discs, rear wheels clothed in spats, and bleached maple woodwork and cabinetry interiors. Of course, like many period Rolls-Royces, the driver would have been a chauffeur, sitting out in the open, while the owner of the car sat cosily in the back seat, driving around London until after World War II.
After a few more owners, the car underwent a complete engine rebuild by marque experts Clark and Carter of Braintree, Essex, while its cosmetics were carefully detailed in a no expense-spared restoration. Lord Bamford continued to show the car at the Cartier Style et Luxe Concours at the Goodwood Festival of Speed as well as the Salon Privé at Blenheim Palace in the UK.
But why have one art deco masterpiece when you could have two? The 1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom III Special Henley Coupe is also from the Bamford Collection and is being offered without reserve. At the time, the Phantom III was gaining traction in the US as multi-cylinder V12 power plants were proliferating stateside– until Rolls-Royce stepped in and made their own– the Phantom, so luxurious that it put all the others to shame.
This particular model, Chassis 3 CP124 was built by coachbuilders Inskip Inc of New York for repeat customer Mrs. Margaret Dunlop. A wealthy widow to a flooring company, Mrs. Dunlop needed the finest car money could buy to be shuttled around upstate New York. In fact, Inskip was originally instructed to provide a chauffeur-driven sedan with a divider. But by 1940, design and user trends had shifted, and Mrs. Dunlop wanted an owner/driver format and an overall update to the design to be more modern.
The result? A stunning Special Henley Coupe with the dished fender treatment endemic to late Henley roadsters. Once the car changed hands from Mrs. Dunlop, it was featured in many publications, such as True Magazine Automobile Yearbook, 1958, the Rolls-Royce: An Album of Sales and Institutional Literature and even Playboy Magazine in April 1958. That’s an extra sexy Rolls-Royce Phantom!
In 2011 the car appeared in a Gooding & Company auction and was acquired by Lord Bamford, to return to England and to a legendary collection. It then underwent an incredibly painstaking restoration at Clark & Carter, during which the entire card was disassembled and refurbished from scratch, down to the chassis itself. The process took no fewer than eight years to complete and cost more than $2,000,000. Said restoration also extended to the mechanical components of the car, providing reliable running gear and cooling systems, which are integral to this kind of car.
Of course, the aesthetics remained a high priority as well– the paint is ‘mirror-finished’ and when the fabric for the interior was no longer available, the restorers had a batch specially woven. This was all in preparation for the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance® in 2019, where the car earned First in Class as well as the Lucius Beebe Trophy for the Best Pre-war Rolls-Royce. Funnily enough, this car went from England to New York, to England, and now is returning to New York for this auction!
For touring, showing, or pretending you have a chauffeur, a stunning antique Rolls-Royce can’t hurt. But there’s more fabulousness where that came from. Check out the Gooding Christie’s online catalogue ahead of the New York Auctions at Retromobile New York for more gems, or register to bid now on a Phantom III.
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