The David Neely Collection

The Melbourne Lord Mayor, The Rolls-Royce and The Top Hat

The name of Melbourne City Council’s new Lord Mayor, elected in November 1931, posed a problem. “Lord Mayor Gengoult Smith” was the heading in the Tasmanian Advocate on 15 October 1931. What a story…

Formaldehyde Fraternity

It was not unusual for pre-World War II Rolls-Royce chassis to be re-bodied and in a number of cases the original bodies were replaced with hearse bodies to serve in the undertaking trade. Read on and enjoy a little glimpse into graveside humour…

Miss Walker and Her Cars at Yaralla, Sydney

Miss Walker purchased a sporting Hispano Suiza in 1913. It was a rakish two-seater with no windscreen, so motoring goggles would have been de rigueur. It was a stark contrast to her large touring cars and limousines, all chauffeur-driven. Had Miss Walker become a motorist? Read on…

Ralph Falkiner of Kellow-Falkiner The Melbourne Agents for Rolls-Royce and later Bentley

Ralph Sadleir Falkiner (1877-1946) was in the second generation of the family in Australia. Falkiner and three of his four brothers owned Rolls-Royces as did two of his nephews. With a dozen or so Rolls-Royces owned by half a dozen family members it is an automotive and genealogical maze. Read on…

Charles Kellow on Two Wheels Penny Farthing Bicycles to Motor Bikes

The Kellow name is known in Australian Rolls-Royce and Bentley motoring circles from the Melbourne firm of Kellow-Falkiner established in 1913. Before that he held the first Rolls-Royce agency in the country in 1906 and imported the first Rolls-Royce in February 1907. Read on…

A World War I Hospital in Paignton, South Devon, England The Benefactor the Patrons and the Matron

The establishment of a hospital in wartime needed spacious accommodation, a wellconnected fundraising group and a battle-hardened matron. The benefactor was Paris Eugene Singer (1867-1932), who co-incidentally has a unique place in the history of Rolls-Royce. He was the company’s first customer in August 1904 when he bought 1904 Rolls-Royce 10 h.p, 20151. The patrons were wealthy American women in Britain mostly married to Englishmen. The matron had nursed in the Boer War. Read on…

Silver Ghost Ambulance with American Volunteer Corps World War I

The chassis of Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost 53AB completed testing and left the factory in January 1914. It was delivered to the English firm of Barker where a limousine body was fitted. The finished car was then transported via the French Rolls-Royce agency to the first owner, Parisian M. Marcellin. It provided luxurious travel for its passengers in the streets of Paris in the middle years of 1914. A natural and gentile habitat for a Rolls-Royce, though that would soon change dramatically. Read on…

A Cattleman, a Rolls-Royce and the 1954 Commonwealth Royal Tour

Allan Goldman, a Queensland and later Western Australian cattleman, purchased the 1950 Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn, chassis number SBA100, in June 1950. What is intriguing about this car is a 1955 newspaper claim, “It carried Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh through the streets of Townsville, Queensland.” during the Royal Tour. Further, “During the Royal visit to Queensland, Townsville was cut off by flood and none of the Royal cars could cross the river. The Goldmans offered the car for the Royal couple’s use.” Read on…

E. E. Agate Motor Car and Carriage Works, Summer Hill, Sydney

In the 1881 England census Ernest, now 19, was described as a wheelwright. Having established himself as a coachbuilder, at the age of 25 Ernest left England and arrived in Sydney on 11 January 1886. His first job was with the Clyde Engineering Works at Granville. Read on…

Seeing the Sights in a Rolls-Royce Charabanc

“Rolfe Bros., of Blackheath, NSW, drive the public to the various mountain sights in a Rolls-Royce. It is always in use. How the visitors to the district love to have their photographs taken seated in the car even if it doesn’t belong to them!” This item appeared in the Sydney ‘Smith’s Weekly’ on 29 January 1927 and referred to Rolfe’s Rolls-Royce Charabanc. Read on…

Fred T Hack Coachbuilder, Motor Body Builder and Cricketer Adelaide and Sydney

In 1898 Fred Hack was working as a coachbuilder when South Australians saw a motorised vehicle for the first time. Hack played interstate cricket for South Australia as an opening batsman from 1898 to 1909. He ran a very successful carriage and motor body building enterprise in Adelaide from 1904 to 1917 and then moved to Sydney and established the Missenden Road Motor Body Works. Read on…

Rolls before Royce

Charles Rolls had been driving and racing motor vehicles for eight years before he took to the wheel of the first Royce car. And so much more. Read on…

The Hon. Mrs Assheton Harbord

Charles Roll’s credentials as a balloon aeronaut and motorist are impeccable and exhaustively documented. Does his friend May Harbord also deserve an accolade as an accomplished Edwardian balloon aeronaut and motorist? Read on…

Rolls-Royce Twenty Owner in Sydney’s Long Bay Gaol

It is rare that we find both a photograph of the original coachwork on a Rolls-Royce from the 1920s and a fine contemporary description of the craftsmanship that went into the body and its fittings. Read on…

The Admiral’s Rolls-Royce goes to the Sydney Royal Easter Show

The 1922 Rolls-Royce Twenty Barker tourer chassis 40G9 was brought by Vice-Admiral Sir Frederick Field on board the battle-cruiser H.M.S. Hood, which was visiting Sydney in April 1924 on the Cruise of the Special Service Squadron also known as the Empire Cruise. Read on….

The Daimler Motor Ambulance, The Philanthropist and The Cockatoo

Presented to the Queen of Belgium by Mrs Bon of Victoria Australia” was inscribed on the side of the Daimler motor ambulance pictured above. Called motor ambulances at the time to distinguish them from horse-drawn ones, which were still very much in service during World War I.

Messrs T. E. Barr Smith, Glen Osmond. 1910 Silver Ghost, Chassis 1388, Salmons and Sons (UK) Landaulette.

This is the first of twelve articles (in order, below). "Rolls-Royce Owners – Twelve in State” was the heading of an article in the 26 January 1926 edition of the Adelaide newspaper ‘News’, which was published from 1923 to 1954.

T. Tait, Oaklands 1910 Silver Ghost, Chassis 1425, John Dawson & Sons, Adelaide, Tourer

C. H. Angas, Angaston 1911 Silver Ghost, chassis 1524, Grosvenor (UK) Brougham

G. Milne, Brougham Place, North Adelaide 1923 Silver Ghost, Chassis 22NK, Barker (UK) Tourer

J. M. Reid, Victoria Avenue, Unley Park 1924 Twenty, chassis GRK81, a Barker (UK) Torpedo Cabriolet

J. P. Lewis, Nelyambo Station, Wilcannia 1925 Twenty, chassis GNK86, Smith & Waddington, Sydney, Roadster

Napier Birks, Park Terrace, Parkside 1925 Phantom I, chassis 44RC, H J Mulliner (UK) Tourer

Mesdames W. T. Mortlock, Martindale Hall, Mintaro 1912 Silver Ghost, Chassis 2104, Tourer

L. Hughes, Lee Lodge, Strangways Terrace, North Adelaide 1921 Silver Ghost, chassis 143AG, H J Mulliner (UK) Tourer

M. Symons, Walkerville 1922 Silver Ghost, chassis 70SG, Sphinx (SA) Open-drive Limousine

T.R. Scarfe, Eden Park, Marryatville 1922 Silver Ghost, Chassis 40RG, Tourer

Rolls-Royce Recovered – Arrests Made

The car was a 1948 Silver Wraith WDC77, Hooper ‘Teviot’ limousine. The chassis history is in ‘Rolls-Royce and Bentley in the Sunburnt Country’ page 363 and the coachwork is similar to WAB24 on page 362 and pictured here.

The ‘Delhi Durbar Royal Motor Car Stakes’

Read about the eight virtually identical Rolls-Royce Silver Ghosts landaulettes ordered by the Government of India for the Coronation Durbar in Delhi. Fascinating….

The Gnoo Blas Motor Racing Circuit Orange, NSW

Orange was the venue for an intriguing chapter in the annals of Australian motor racing history in the 1950s. It wrested dominance of road racing from the Mount Panorama circuit at Bathurst and the first meeting was run on 26 January 1953. Read on…..

E. E. Agate – Coach and Motor Body Builder. Summer Hill, Sydney

In 1889 Ernest Edwin Agate (1861-1930), in partnership with Thomas Dean, commenced business as Dean and Agate, coach and buggy builders and blacksmiths in Junction Road, Summer Hill, Sydney. Read on…..

Darrin of Paris. 1937-1939 Los Angeles, California

Two American designers, Thomas L. Hibbard (1898-1982) and Howard A. “Dutch” Darrin (1897-1982) served in France during World War I. Both employed at Brewster’s studios in NY. Hibbard, went on to be a co-founder of LeBaron, which sold designs but did not build car bodies.

Rolls-Royce Art Cars

An art car is a car that has been transformed into a painting or a sculpture as an act of personal artistic expression. Bold artwork often invites controversy and that is almost certain to be the case when the art car canvas is a Rolls-Royce.

Rolls-Royce – International Car Show

“Special Rolls-Royce Imported For Well-Known Pastoralist” and “Luxurious Car For E. Hunter Bowman” were headlines in ‘The Land’ on 30 August 1935.

Burma President involved in a Rolls-Royce Crash

“A police motor-cyclist and a chauffeur try to prise the crumpled mudguard of a Rolls-Royce off the wheel after the Rolls carrying President Ne Win of Burma and a police-escort motor cycle collided in Melbourne yesterday.”

Lucas first owner of Phantom I – Chassis No. 44SC

David Neely traces the history of 44SC, a Phantom I. The first owner was “A J J Lucas”. There was, however, no photograph of the original coachwork when researching for ‘Rolls-Royce and Bentley in the Sunburnt Country’ back in 1999 and nothing further about the first owner, other than he lived in Melbourne. And so the research began.

An Open and Closed Case – Chassis No. GRK81

The 1924 Rolls-Royce Twenty, Chassis GRK81, has a body by the London company of Barker and was built to a French patent. The completed car was delivered to Motors Limited, the Adelaide Rolls-Royce agents, for John Reid in 1925. Read the story….

Stolen in South Yarra – Chassis No. 78A1

The car was 1923 20 hp 78A1 with its original Windovers cabriolet body. Read the story….

The Alberts Chose the No.7 – Chassis No. 38RB

The Frank Alberts of Sydney, who have a fine fleet of cars, specialise in number, rather than car families. With one exception, they have cornered the seven market. Read the story….

Rolls-Royce Touring New Zealand – Chassis No. 56WJ

‘The Sydney Morning Herald’ 1 October 1936 reported, “Dr. and Mrs. Hugh Poate, of Bellevue Hill, and their five children, will sail on January 3 for New Zealand, where Dr. Poate will attend a medical conference. They will take their Rolls-Royce…… Read the story.

Rolls-Royce Arrives in Perth – Chassis No. 54EM

‘The West Australian’ in 1935 is captioned, “Mr. A. W. Jacoby’s newly-acquired Rolls-Royce” and shows the re-bodied Martin & King saloon body……. Read the story.

Luxury Rolls-Royce Caravan – Chassis No. 48OR

“LUXURY CARAVAN DELIVERED Rolls-Royce Chassis” were the headlines in The Argus on 8 February 1938, “Caravanning will have its peace and quietness for Mr G. R. Nicholas, of Toorak, who took delivery yesterday of one of these miniature homes built on the chassis of a 40/50 horse-power Rolls-Royce.” Read the story.

Stolen in Adelaide

“THIEVES RACE POLICE CARS Youths' Wild Night in Adelaide 100 m.p.h. THROUGH CITY STREETS ADELAIDE,” was how the headlines appeared in ‘The Courier-Mail’ (Brisbane, QLD) on 26 February 1937.

Starting Colour Scheme

Our appreciation of older model Rolls-Royces is often enhanced by contemporary accounts. This is certainly so in the case of GYZ6, with a description penned well over 80 years ago under the heading, “A ROLLS THAT IS DIFFERENT”,

Rolls-Royce Smash – Two Killed

The Smith & Waddington limousine on a 1926 Phantom I, 111DC, was destroyed in the horrific accident on 1 November 1931.

The Duke of Connaught

HRH Prince Arthur, the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn and the first Royce Motor Car. The Duke of Connaught it appears was the only member of the Royal Family to ride in a Royce car, only three of which were built, all in 1904. What’s more he was driven by an enthusiastic Charles Rolls.

Jackson, Jones & Collins

This interesting article references limousine coachwork builders Messrs. Jackson, Jones and Collins who specialised in custom coach work, and they have to their credit many excellent examples of high grade body work. They had a reputation for special jobs, featuring details worked in to meet the individual requirements of customers. Enjoy reading.

ROYAL CONNECTIONS

Mrs Penfold Hyland and the Colour Grey

The Most Magnificently Startling Rolls-Royce

Gas to Go

Brace of Phantom Vs

THE EARLY YEARS 1863-1877

CAREER AND MARRIAGE1877-1897

A STATUE IN HIS LIFETIME

THE ROLLS-ROYCE MOTTO

THE SCHNEIDER TROPHY

PORTRAIT

CELEBRATION OF BARONETCY

COAT OF ARMS

WESTMINSTER ABBEY MEMORIAL WINDOW

SIMPLE FUNERAL

THE EARLY YEARS 1863-1877

CAREER AND MARRIAGE1877-1897

A STATUE IN HIS LIFETIME

THE ROLLS-ROYCE MOTTO

THE SCHNEIDER TROPHY

PORTRAIT

CELEBRATION OF BARONETCY

COAT OF ARMS

WESTMINSTER ABBEY MEMORIAL WINDOW

SIMPLE FUNERAL