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Old 19th March 2009, 11:23   #961
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Originally Posted by wasif View Post
Previously owned by the Maharaja and Maharani of Baroda, India. This one off concours superb example is a work of art that can be enjoyably driven. This car was built by Rolls Royce and bodied by Aurthur Mulliner in 1927 and is a very historically important vehicle. Custom original features included 24 carat gold plated interior fittings and sterling silver exterior door handles. The rear compartment is fitted with a central swivel throne chair with two fold-away seats, a cocktail cabinet, sliding curved glass division, ornate burl walnut with inlaid brass and Royal Purple English silk to the original pattern and color, adorned with gold, and Connally leather to the front. Mechanically excellent w/almost little wear from new on this 7,668 cc six-cylinder engine and four-speed transmission.Very low miles since completion of an extensive cosmetic restoration on this very very low mileage original. Call Roy for further information.

Car is for sale at Classic cars for sale - European, American antique and Vintage automobiles. Pictures from their website.

Here is an opportunity for an Indian collector to buy back some motoring heritage and then get into a tussle with the authorities. Not worth the bother. What a fine car. Any pics when she was in India?
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Old 19th March 2009, 11:45   #962
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Originally Posted by wasif View Post
From the link-
Henry Rolls famous statement,
"The quality will be remembered long after the price is forgotten."


Who was Henry Rolls?

Aditya

Last edited by Technocrat : 19th March 2009 at 13:06. Reason: Removed color & font tags
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Old 21st March 2009, 06:36   #963
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BBC Documentary - Maharaja's Motor Car; Story of RR in India

Attached is a link with stills from the BBC documentary that aired in March. Unfortunately, looks like it is only available in the U.K.

The Maharajas' Motor Car - The Story of Rolls-Royce in India (8th March 2009) - [BBC] - BwTorrents

Scroll down to the lower half of the page
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Old 22nd March 2009, 13:19   #964
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This car was listed in a 2001 auction at Christies. It is a 1933 Rolls Royce Phantom III Tropedo Tourer, Chasis No. 105MW with a Barker Tropedo Tourer Body claimed to belong to a Rana Saheb of Hathoura

Car was in Calcutta in the mid seventies from where it was exported. Can anyone shed moe light on this cars history.



Lot Description
+The ex-Maharajah Rajah Sahib of Hathoura
29,500 miles from new

1933 ROLLS-ROYCE 40/50HP PHANTOM II TORPEDO TOURER
COACHWORK BY BARKER
Chassis No. 105 MW
Polished aluminium with red leather interior
Engine: six-cylinder, 7,668cc.; Gearbox: four-speed synchromesh manual with right hand change; Suspension: solid axle, semi-elliptic leaf springs front and rear; Brakes: four-wheel mechanical servo drum. Right hand drive.
The Rolls-Royce Phantom II is considered by many authorities of pre-war Rolls-Royces to be the best of the marque ever built. It had the classic lines that said 'luxury' and 'performance' all in one. The Phantom II was made from 1929 to 1935 during which time some 1,767 were produced. It was the last of the 'Big Six' models and is considered the finest achievement of the master Sir Frederick Henry Royce. The engine actually grew out of the six-cylinder used in the Phantom I, but was improved with an aluminium cylinder head and revised manifolding. In the Phantom II, the cantilever springs of the Phantom I were replaced by supple semi-elliptic rear springs. The chassis was lower and so in turn was the centre of gravity, weight was reduced and the steering was much improved. The Phantom II also had centralized chassis lubrication and twin ignition systems, one by coil and battery and the other by magneto, firing six plugs each. At the end of 1932, a new improved gearbox was introduced.
Chassis 105 MW is a remarkable survivor of the coachbuilt long chassis Phantom II as it still carries its splendid four-door Barker body with single-panel windscreen. The Rolls-Royce was first ordered for His Highness The Raja of Hathoura for use in India and was shipped in October 1933 from London to Bombay with natural polished aluminium coachwork to the exterior and red hide interior trim. The build sheet records confirm that the original equipment included a chromium plated luggage grid, a chrome mascot and a Staybrite cap, chrome plated headlamp brackets, a cut-out, highly polished front apron, a steering wheel and associated control knobs in ivory white finish, a chrome plated control quadrant, chrome plated instrument bezels and black dial instruments with white figures.
The bonnet was of course also highly polished aluminium with louvres and rear ends sloping at 11 degrees and the louvres carried right through to the rear. Complete with Stephen Grebel spot lights mounted either side of the low windscreen, the finished car must have made a dazzling sight in the Indian noon-day sunshine. Driving aids included one-shot lubrication of the chassis by means of a foot operated lever under the dash and an exhaust cut-out, not permitted for use in the United Kingdom, but no doubt very effective on one's own estate in India!
The Phantom II was found derelict north of Calcutta in the mid seventies and was repatriated to Britain in 1976/7 for restoration by Mr. A.B. Price who is highly regarded as an automotive engineer and whose book Rolls-Royce: The Cars & Their Competitors 1906-1965 features this very car on the front cover. At the time a complete renovation of the coachwork was undertaken. The bodywork was reframed and repaneled as necessary and all the trim was renewed including the side curtains, hood and carpeting. A partial stripdown of the engine was particularly revealing: hardly any wear was found, especially in the bores, thus confirming the amazing low mileage which then was just 20,000 or so miles. It was subsequently displayed at the Stratford Motor Museum before being sold by Christie's in the Summer of 1980 (lot 48) whereupon it again went abroad, this time to Australia as a team mascot-car for an America's Cup yacht owner. The current owner purchased the Rolls-Royce in 1991.
This is a remarkable opportunity to acquire a handsome and truly sporting Rolls-Royce. As the Christie's catalogue stated twenty-one years ago it must be one of only a handful of custom-bodied Rolls-Royce survivors from the golden age of the British Raj.
Attached Thumbnails
Classic Rolls Royces in India-d2470844x.jpg  


Last edited by wasif : 22nd March 2009 at 13:23.
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Old 22nd March 2009, 13:33   #965
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The Maharaja of Mysore's 1911 Silver Ghost Landaulette.

This is from concept cars showing the Mysore 1911 Ghost. Interesting read and an amazing car.

The rulers of India, the Maharajas of various states and city-states, were loyal customers of the Rolls-Royce marque. Many lived a very lavish lifestyle in palaces with staff and attendants to wait on their ever need and desire. When they traveled they were often accompanied by large numbers of guards, retainers, family and staff. Rolls-Royce had a colonial model which was well suited to the rougher roads and conditions of remote regions, and a popular choice for many of the Maharajas. They were fitted with a wide variety of coachwork for entertainment, hunting, ceremony and transportation.

The coronation of King George V was celebrated by all of the Princes of India in what was called the Delhi Durbar. This beautiful Rolls-Royce is one of eight Silver Ghosts with identical landaulette bodies provided for this special event. After the coronation, it was presented to the Maharaja of Mysore, who had it rebodied with this magnificent open (to suit the tropical climate) Victoria to be used for parades and other special ceremonies by the Maharaja.

The eight identical landaulette bodied cars were built by Barker, Hooper, Windovers, Mulliner and Thrupp & Maberly. This car, with chassis 1683, was the only on bodied by H.J. Mulliner and was fitted with Pullman Limousine coachwork.

Following the Durbar, ownership passed to Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV, Maharaja of Mysore. At some early period in its life the Mulliner Pullman limousine coachwork was removed and rebodied wih this open Victoria. It was used for parades and similar ceremonial occassions.

The passengers riding in the elevated rear seat are protected from the sun by a folding victoria top. The large umbrella in the rear was to provide partial shading for the guards and retainers standing at attention in the sun. A very thoughtful gesture on part of the Maharaja.

The car returned to England in the 1950s and treated to a restoration. Upon completion, it was sold at auction to James Leake for the price of $27,000, a high price at the time. Millard Newman became the cars next owner and then purchased by Richard Solove in 1993. He commissioned Dave Hemmings to perform another restoration which still shows nicely in modern times.

At the 1994 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance it was awarded first-in-class honors and earned the Millard Newman Award at Amelia Island in 2003.

This Silver Ghost has a side-valve, six-cylinder, 7428cc engine producing 48 horsepower at 1,250 rpm, and a three-speed transmission. The seven-bearing crankshaft has full pressure lubrication and the center main bearing is made specially large to remove vibration, essentially splitting the engine into two three-cylinder units. Two spark plugs are fitted to each cylinder with a trembler coil to produce the spark with a magneto-the instruction was to start the engine on the trembler/battery and then switch to magneto. The substantial chassis had rigid front and rear axles and leaf springs all round. The success of the model led to the company dropping the previous range of cars and following a one model policy until the launch of the 20 hp in 1922. In all, a total of 8,416 Silver Ghost cars were produced from 1907 to 1926, including 1,703 from the American Springfield factory. Many are still running to this day. The Silver Ghost was the origin of Rolls-Royce's claim of making the 'Best car in the world' - a phrase coined by the prestigious publication Autocar in 1907.

In 2007 it was brought to the Gooding & Company auction held in Pebble Beach, Ca where it was estimated to sell for $800,000-$1,200,000 and offered without reserve. Those estimates proved very accurate as the lot was sold for $990,000
Attached Thumbnails
Classic Rolls Royces in India-11rolls_4050_slvrghost_dv07mb_01.jpg  

Classic Rolls Royces in India-11rr_4050_sg_dv07mb_01.jpg  

Classic Rolls Royces in India-11rr_slvr_ghost_victoriadv07_gc_02.jpg  

Classic Rolls Royces in India-11rolls_4050_slvrghost_dv07mb_i001.jpg  

Classic Rolls Royces in India-11rr_slvr_ghost_victoriadv07_gc_i01.jpg  

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Old 22nd March 2009, 13:50   #966
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Thanks for the good reading you have given us, can you also please post the original links?
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Old 22nd March 2009, 14:01   #967
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Some interesting reading on Rolls Royces and Indian Royalty courtsey of the Tribune.

Karl.

The Mysore Ghost is courtsey of Conceptcarz.com

[Maharajas’ rendezvous with Rolls-Royce]N his famous book Freedom at Midnight, French author Lapierre states that on an average each maharaja in India had 3.5 Rolls-Royce automobiles. If we were to stick to the correct number of maharajas — 225 of them (those who had gun salutes fired in their honour were entitled to the title, all others were merely rajas — that would mean that from 1908 to 1939 (when World War II started), the maharajas had bought at least 788 Rolls-Royce cars. If you include the rajas, it could be more. Automobile historian John M. Faisal states that in all, before 1947, a total of 900 Rolls-Royce cars were sold to Indian princesThe craze the Indian princes had for exotic automobiles in the first four decades of the twentieth century is well known. After World War I, many of the Indian princes spent a lot of money on famous American automobile brands like Cadillacs, Chryslers and Lincoln, but none of the non-British brands appealed to the maharajas as the Rolls-Royce. In fact, the very first Rolls-Royce that came off the assembly lines after World War II (1939-45) was bought by Maharaja Pratap Singh Gaekwar of Baroda







The very first Rolls-Royce bought by a "native Indian prince" was the "Pearl of the East". It was purchased by the Maharaja of Gwalior after its record breaking trans-India runs in 1908. Soon the Indian rulers began to order exotic versions. The handbook of the grand 40/50 h.p. Silver Ghost, sent to His Highness the Nizam of Hyderabad in March 1913 by Rolls-Royce, stated that it was a "Semi-State Coach". Actually it was a sort of throne car, painted in a rich canary yellow with gold mountings, upholstered in gold silk brocade with matching curtains and brocade. And this was only one of the Nizam’s 50 Rolls-Royces, many of which still have their original paint. They had barely done one thousand miles when he died in 1967. But it appears that despite his dozens of exotic automobiles (numbering more than 200), the Nizam used only one of his old Buicks to do his circuits of Hyderabad city
]In 1920, a Silver Ghost limousine was sold to the Viceroy of India. Later this was bought by the Raja of Monghyr, who deputed a well-known Calcutta jeweller to decorate the car with silver plate as per Indian designs. This car was said to be the most ornate Rolls-Royce in India. Many maharajas preferred the Cabriolet version, which enabled them to sit on a raised seat in the rear of the automobile so that their subjects would be able to recognise the ruler and pay homage. Talking to the librarian in the Rolls-Royce archives in London, I found that although the firm sold their automobiles to quite a number of maharajas, they considered the Maharaja of Mysore special, for he always bought Rolls-Royces in batches of seven! So much so that in Rolls-Royce parlance "doing a Mysore" meant selling seven cars at the same time. Another famous buyer was the Maharaja of Bharatpur (He always bought three automobiles at the same time). Once when the Rolls-Royce firm delayed sending mechanics to his capital to rectify small faults in the cars, the maharaja threatened to convert all his Rolls-Royces into garbage carriers. Lest the car lose its "aura" as the automobile for the super rich, the car-makers sent a group of mechanics at the earliest to Bharatpur. Another enthusiastic buyer was the Maharaja of Patiala, whose Rolls-Royces (27 among his hundreds of vintage makes) were decorated with diamonds and precious stones — so much so that during the overhaul of his cars, elite security guards had to be positioned in the garage to prevent pilferage. The Maharaja of Nabha had one Rolls Royce — with its body built to resemble a swan. When the car made its slow progress on the streets, it had the gracious appearance of a swan taking to water. Jawaharlal Nehru, referring to this automobile in one of his books, wrote that the maharaja was known as "Bathak (Hindi for goose) Raja" as the onlookers could not differentiate between the goose and swan.
The Maharaja of Darbhanga had a number of Rolls-Royces and according to a recent newspaper report, six of them are rusting in the old family garage at Darbhanga. The Maharaja of Faridkot too was fond of Rolls-Royce. Late last year, one automobile enthusiast managed to get a peep into the padlocked palace garage and came back goggle-eyed after counting six Rolls-Royces, two Bentleys and four Jaguars rusting away.


The maharajas used the Rolls-Royce as a vehicle for tiger hunting as well. These special cars had extra footboards for the servants to stand while the car rushed through the forest in pursuit of the tiger and a special high power "farlight screen mounted tiger shooting lamp" dazzled the tiger’s eyes and made it an easy victim. One of the books on Rolls-Royce states that a particular model bought by the H.H. Aga Khan II in the early 1930s was considered to be so unique that the manufacturers made an arrangement with him that the car would be sold back to them for its market value after his demise.

Independence found the maharajas with dozens of Rolls-Royces but no money to maintain them. In the early sixties, many cars were surreptitiously sold to the foreign vintage car connoisseurs under the plea that the car was being sent out of India for repair as the spare parts were not available in the country. By 1971, when privy purses were abolished, the Government of India became wise to this kind of selling and decided that the cars could be sold outside India, provided the sale price money was brought back to India in foreign exchange. The Jodhpur "Ghost of India" was one such car sold in the 1970s. The "Swan" car was sold by the erstwhile Maharani of Nabha to an "Indian buyer" in the 1990s. The Indian buyer proved to be an agent for a foreign vintage car enthusiast and had the car sent out of India. By the time Indian vintage car experts came to know of the sale, it was too late. This car is now said to be in an Amsterdam museum.

However, not all the princes were happy with the smooth running engine of the Rolls-Royce, which barely made a noise. The Nawab of Arcot in South India suddenly stopped coming to Madras city in his antique Rolls-Royce. Instead he attended meetings and conferences in an old car of a different make. When queried as to why he chose the inferior car for his trips, his straight-faced answer was: "Well... the Rolls-Royce does not make any sound when I drive it, even in high speed. During my use of the car in estates, my tenants do not get a chance to look up and pay me homage.... As such I have to use this cheaper and more noisy model, which gives advance notice of my coming!"


Last edited by wasif : 22nd March 2009 at 14:06.
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Old 22nd March 2009, 14:04   #968
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Some interesting reading on Rolls Royces and Indian Royalty courtsey of the Tribune.

Karl.

The Mysore Ghost is courtsey of Conceptcarz.com
Wasif,

When you post from an external link you are required to post that link here as well.
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Old 23rd March 2009, 10:39   #969
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Wasif,

When you post from an external link you are required to post that link here as well.
Will do Sir.

The thing is most of this info has been with me for a while and I have it stored on various CD's which I go through and post here.

The cars may have been mentioned in other threads but the details in these articles is not present in any thread.

The idea here is to share with all of you the interesting details I have on cars that are part of our heritage.

If you guys feel this info is not relevent then please advice and I will stop posting it.
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Old 23rd March 2009, 10:43   #970
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Will do Sir.

The thing is most of this info has been with me for a while and I have it stored on various CD's which I go through and post here.

The cars may have been mentioned in other threads but the details in these articles is not present in any thread.

The idea here is to share with all of you the interesting details I have on cars that are part of our heritage.

If you guys feel this info is not relevent then please advice and I will stop posting it.
If you feel any particular post is more relevant in another thread, please go ahead and do so. For example a post on a Rolls Royce of a Maharaja can go in both the Maharaja thread, or the Rolls Royce thread. You take the call where it is better suited on a one-to-one basis.

Why Im keen on you posting the links is because this is copyrighted material which we cannot reproduce without mentioning the particular original source. It can create issues in the long term.
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Old 25th March 2009, 11:11   #971
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Check out this link,
1926 Rolls-Royce Phantom I *for sale by Coys Essen Auction, April 4 - PreWarCar.Com

Another ex-India Rolls for sale, this time a P I 1926

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Old 25th March 2009, 14:49   #972
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Originally Posted by harit View Post
Check out this link,
1926 Rolls-Royce Phantom I *for sale by Coys Essen Auction, April 4 - PreWarCar.Com

Another ex-India Rolls for sale, this time a P I 1926

Harit
Caution, this ad is misleading. The correct chassis number is 47YC.
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Old 18th April 2009, 10:56   #973
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This is a 20HP which belonged to an engineering institute in MP. This car earlier belonged to Sir Hukumchand.
This car was auctioned off for about 8L about 10/15 years ago. WHere is she now? Someone mentioned Hyderabad, but this is not confirmed. The body was by some "Paddon" or so, I forgot the name. The side screens folded into the doors.
This Rolls thread had gone way back, are we running out of Rolls's in India?
Attached Thumbnails
Classic Rolls Royces in India-20hp1.jpg  

Classic Rolls Royces in India-20hp2.jpg  

Classic Rolls Royces in India-20hp3.jpg  

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Old 19th April 2009, 13:53   #974
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Harit the car is in Hyderabad.

There's another very pretty 20hp in Hyd, don't have pictures of the car though

Last edited by DKG : 19th April 2009 at 13:55.
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Old 19th April 2009, 14:23   #975
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Hi DKG.

Can we ask who it is with in Hyd and also the other car you mentioned.

Wasif
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