Page 52 - Mar2023
P. 52
Dreams for Sale, continued from p. 51 transmission. Trimmed with a superlative mix of
sumptuous leather hides, rich wood veneers and
Dreaming of a Classic Car wit h a Celebrit y deep lambswool carpets, the model was every bit
Provenance, a Do-able Price Tag, and a as luxurious as it was expensive. Priced at an eye
Marvelous Back St ory? This is Your Car. watering £10,511 upon launch, the same amount
would have purchased both an Aston Martin DB6
Volante and a Ferrari 330 GTS! Despite being in
H&H Classics will offer at its Imperial War production for four years, just 506 MPW Two-Door
Drophead Coupes are thought to have been
Museum sale, March 15th, the first car actor Michael
made.
Caine bought for himself, according to the company's
release. The 1968 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow By 1968, Sir Michael Caine had become a
Two-Door Drophead Coupe has had additional household name on both sides of the Atlantic with
owners associated with celebrity culture and is a commensurate increase in his earning capacity.
estimated to pass under the hammer for between Paid £4,000 for his breakout role in Zulu (1964), he
£100,000 ? 150,000. ($121,000 ? $182,000), although received $250,000 for Gambit (1966). A punishing
association with celebrities does tend to drive up filming schedule had left him without time for a
estimated prices. holiday but with a decidedly healthy bank balance.
Lot det ails Describing himself as ?The original bourgeois
nightmare ? a Cockney with intelligence and a
Registration No: ALO 182H (formerly UGN 842F)
million dollars? he took a flat on Grosvenor
,
Chassis No: CRH3929 Square, sorted better accommodation for his
MOT: Exempt mother and adopted a ?Man about Mayfair?
persona. Conscious that he had reached the age
The first car ever bought by Sir Michael Caine CBE
of thirty-five without ever owning a car or even
Purchased from Caine by Jack Leach, whose famous obtaining a driving licence, the way Caine
Gasworks restaurant the actor used to frequent along remedied the situation has become the stuff of
with HRH Princess Margaret, the Krays, Elizabeth legend.
Taylor and Richard Burton, the Rolling Stones and the
Depending upon which version you believe, the
Profumo set etc.
actor wandered into the renowned Jack Barclay
Owned by Jack Leach until his death in 2013 and often showroom on Berkeley Square with a handwritten
seen driving up and down the Fulham and King's shopping list which read as follows: ?milk, bread,
.
Roads newspaper, cigarettes, Rolls-Royce?
Treated to tens of thousands of pounds worth of Unkempt, unshaven and by his own admission
restoration including an engine overhaul, repaint and possibly a little the worse for wear, he was given
retrim since being acquired by the vendor in 2018. short shrift and ushered off the premises. Less
than impressed, he journeyed onto Mayfair?s other
Featured extensively in the 1969 documentary
Rolls-Royce dealership that of H.A. Fox on Dover
'Candid Caine: A Self-Portrait of Michael Caine'
Street. There he found a 1968 Rolls-Royce Silver
Hand-crafted by Rolls-Royce?s in-house coachbuilder Shadow Two-Door Drophead Coupe which had
Mulliner Park Ward, the Silver Shadow Two-Door been taken into stock after the playwright and
Drophead Coupe was introduced in 1967. The work of screenwriter Terence Rattigan cancelled his order
stylist W.G. Allen, the convertible boasted wonderfully for it (arguably best known for penning ?The Yellow
sleek lines. Blending speed with refinement in a way Rolls-Royce? Rattigan already owned a 1966
,
that few rivals could match, it was powered by a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III Drophead Coupe).
6230cc OHV V8 engine allied to automatic
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