Page 43 - The Kellner Affair Sample Pages

THE KELLNER AFFAIR: MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH
The Hôtel Métropole in Monaco, April 19, 1956. On their way to the Royal wedding of Rainier and Grace Kelly, Walter and Zette are standing behind B64AN, accompanied by Louis Chiron and his wife. (Davide Bassoli, Nubes Argentea Archive)
rst S1 delivered to France. The car became Walter Sleator’s demonstrator, and was used frequently to present the discreet elegance of the best in English luxury cars to the growing bourgeoisie that could now afford such things in France, lm and popstars, as well as the odd titled gentleman who had not lost his fortune to rising property and inheritance taxes as the welfare state came into being.
One photo of B64AN shows Walter demonstrating the dashboard layout to Gladwyn Jebb, the British Ambassador to France, another a relaxed moment in the showroom with Sleator speaking to Frederick Llewellyn Smith, now Rolls-Royce Managing Director, with Prince Rainier III of Monaco to the left, hanging out in his cashmere coat. A third portrays the car in front of the Hôtel Métropole in Monaco, on April 19, 1956, the Royal wedding day of Rainier and Grace Kelly. Just before the ceremony, Walter and Zette are standing behind B64AN dressed to the nines, accompanied by the Monégasque racing driver Louis Chiron and his wife. Hobnobbing it with the great had become a way of life.
Walter and Zette in the late 1950s in the large at he purchased in the beginning of the decade in the boulevard Charcot in Neuilly. (Donald Sleator)
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