1924 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Shooting Brake

Lot details
Registration No: YT 33
Chassis No: 89RM
Mot Expiry: Exempt

- Supplied new to financier and MP Sir Harry Deeley Mallaby-Deeley

- Converted into a Shooting Brake by Wade Palmer of Jack O'Lantern garage during the late 1950s

- Past refurbishment work by Ashton Keynes totalling over £40,000

Further Info:

Originally fitted with Enclosed Drive Limousine coachwork by Hooper, chassis 89RM was supplied new to the financier and MP Sir Harry Mallaby Mallaby-Deeley of Mitcham Court, Surrey on 11th November 1924. Returned to the factory some twelve years later, the Silver Ghost was treated to an engine overhaul, upgrade to Andre Telecontrol shock absorbers, re-tempered leaf springs, sundry rewiring and a conversion to well base wheel rims. Passing to Sir Guy Meyrick Mallaby Mallaby-Deeley upon his father's death in 1937, the Rolls-Royce appears to have remained in the Surrey area until 1958 when Bertram Cowan sold it to fellow dealer F.G. Wade Palmer for £100. Based at the Jack O'Lantern garage near Romsey in Hampshire, Mr Wade Palmer breathed new life into countless Silver Ghost and Phantom chassis. As well as recreating the Silver Ghost Armoured Cars that featured in the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia, he rebodied chassis 89RM as a Shooting Brake / Estate Bus.

Operated by a firm of ironmongers named Pink & Stretch and used to ferry passengers from Lyndhurst Railway Station to the nearby Crown Hotel for a time, the Silver Ghost was offered to marque historian and co-author of `Edwardian Rolls-Royce' John Fasal in mid-1965 for the princely sum of £500. Recalling that `being nine feet high and over twenty feet in length I had no garage at the time to accommodate this useful vehicle', Mr Fasal noted its appearance in renowned dealer David `Bunty' Scott-Moncrieff's Motor Sport magazine advertisement a few months later. Priced at a somewhat more bullish £1,875, chassis 89RM was said to be `fitted with original `Servants' Bus' fourteen-seater body' and further described as: `the type of bus, kept by great houses, to replace the wagonette to take servants' luggage to the station (nearly everybody brought their own valet or lady's maid in those days), beaters to the shoot etc. Chassis-wise the vehicle is in well above average condition. It had a complete mechanical overhaul at the Rolls-Royce works in 1945 (sic) and has done less than ten thousand miles since'.

Subsequently sold via Frank Dale Ltd to theatre impressario T. Mitchell of Gore Bridge, Midlothian in June 1966, the Silver Ghost was re-registered from `PD 3078' to `YT 33'. Given an engine overhaul during the mid / late 1980s by its then keeper, Richard W. Blake of Lamorna Vintage & Classic Restorations Ltd, chassis 89RM was visited in Cornwall by Mr Fasal who remembers Mr Blake as being `a very accomplished woodworker and the man responsible for the incredible huge drums that were used in the film Zulu'. Coincidentally, `YT 33' is understood to have appeared in an `Age of Innocence' (a BBC2 documentary on the life of photographer Charles Roff) and to have featured in Colonel Eric Barrass's `A Source Book of Rolls-Royce'. Relocating to Scotland once more, the Estate Bus was photographed outside the famous Skibo Castle in Caithness during 1997. Entering the current family ownership via Christies some eleven years ago, chassis 89RM underwent circa £47,000 worth of cosmetic and mechanical fettling between July 2004 and August 2005. Carried out by Ashton Keynes Restorations, the work included attention to the coachwork, gearbox, brakes and suspension etc. Kept garaged, maintained and regularly MOT tested, the fourteen-seater is felt to be in `fair to good overall' condition. Pleasingly retaining its original engine, this singularly imposing Silver Ghost is currently employed as a Shooting Brake on the vendor's estate.

H&H are indebted to Mr John Fasal for his assistance in the preparation of this catalogue description.

PLEASE NOTE: Since the catalogue went to press we have been contacted by F.G. Wade Palmer's former business partner Rick Ford who informs us that

(a) Chassis 89RM had already been converted into a garage breakdown truck (complete with hoist) by the time Wade Palmer bought it in 1958.

(b) The Jack O'Lantern garage was located on the main road from London to Bournemouth and as such the Rolls-Royce's services were frequently called upon by stranded motorists.

(c) Wade Palmer supplied two Silver Ghost Tourers - as well as the more famous Armoured Cars - for the Lawrence of Arabia film and indeed used the rear wings from one of the 'Lawrence of Arabia' Tourers when re-bodying chassis 89RM during 1963 by which time he had relocated to the old Jam Factory in Romsey. Interestingly, the front wings are thought to be the original Hooper crafted items

(d) The bus coachwork fitted to chassis 89RM began life aboard a Ford commercial operated by a firm of New Forest ironmongers named Pink & Stretch who used it to ferry passengers from Lyndhurst Road Railway Station to the Lyndhurst Crown Hotel. Pink & Stretch scrapped the bus but local dentist Mr Edwardes saved the body, storing it under a tarpaulin in his garden.

(e) Mr Ford took the newly configured Silver Ghost Estate Bus to the RREC's 1964 Goodwood meeting where he tells us it received 'a typical mixed reception'!