1913 ROLLS ROYCE 40/50 SILVER GHOST LONDON-TO-EDINBURGH - JUST CARS

1913 Rolls Royce 40/50 Silver Ghost London-to-Edinburgh Continental - Motorclassica Best in Show 2017

The second Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost to take out the major prize at Motorclassica, the 2017 Best in Show winner is one of just six Silver Ghosts of the same specification remaining in the world.

The wordy ‘London-to-Edinburgh’ tag has its roots in a challenge issued by Rolls-Royce rival Napier in 1911 to engage in an RAC-observed test from London to Edinburgh. The Rolls, a near-standard Silver Ghost (aka 40/50hp) was faster and more fuel efficient than the Napier on the run to Scotland and also bettered its rival on a separate speed test held on the Brooklands circuit.

The winning Rolls-Royce had been fitted with a larger carburettor and higher compression on its 7.4-litre straight six engine, as well as a torque tube casing for the driveshaft and strengthened rear axle. It was the body that most people noticed, though: a compact, lightweight touring type that, thanks to the 1911 test success, led to several Rolls-Royce buyers commissioning copies.

While the chassis and other upgrades were the same on the handful of genuine London-to-Edinburgh 40/50hp models that followed, different coachbuilders interpreted the body in different ways.

In this instance, the coachwork was done by the firm of Peels Ltd., Brisbane, in the 1960s and executed in the style of a 40/50hp that Carlos de Salamanca had driven to victory in the 1913 Spanish Grand Prix (which was more a time trial on public roads than a GP in the accepted sense).

Requisitioned by the British army in World War I, this particular 40/50hp was later sold to a Sydney doctor, arriving in Australia in 1928.

Used as a mourning car for a funeral director and later as a tow truck (!), the Rolls would lie abandoned in a Sydney backyard for decades before it was rediscovered in 1966, refurbished and fitted with its current body.

Purchased by its current owner in 2001, the car was fully restored by Rolls-Royce specialists Artisan Coachworks and The Derby Works, (both located in Victoria), over a 15-year period.