Weekend Edition – A 1980 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow Shooting Brake, and it could be yours…

Welcome to another Weekend Edition here on Hooniverse, and let’s start with this superb Rolls Royce that I discovered over at the Brown Car Appreciation Society’s Facebook Page. This magnificent car was once the property of John Entwhistle (the late member of the legendary Rock Band, The Who), and will be put up for sale with Bonhams at Beaulieu, National Motor Museum. The date of the Auction is the 7th of September, and Bonhams holds an event of this sort almost every year. Now, let’s discover this Rolls Royce…

According to the Auction Cataloque:

Introduced in 1965, the Silver Shadow represented a complete break with tradition, being the first of the Crewe factory’s models to employ unitary construction. All-round independent suspension and power-operated four-wheel disc brakes appeared for the first time on a Rolls-Royce, and production cars boasted a roof-line 4″ lower than that of the preceding Silver Cloud. The Silver Cloud II’s well-tried, 6.2-litre V8 continued in the Shadow until the need to maintain power while meeting US emissions targets saw it enlarged to 6,750cc in 1970. Notable developments prior to that had included the adoption of GM400 automatic transmission and air conditioning as standard. For 1973 the front suspension sub-frame was redesigned, enabling radial tyres to be fitted without compromising ride quality, and later that year ‘impact-resistant’ bumpers – another US requirement – were standardised. Introduced in 1977, the revised Shadow II featured power-assisted rack-and-pinion steering and split-level air conditioning among many improvements.

There was never, of course, an official factory-bodied estate version of the Shadow but that did not deter those wealthy enough from commissioning their own, this example being created at the behest of the late John Entwhistle, legendary bass guitarist with ‘The Who’. The coachbuilder is not known, but eight years ago Bonhams sold a similar car that had been converted by FLM (Panelcraft) Ltd of South London.

The current vendor purchased this car from John Entwhistle’s wife via Hanwells in West London seven years ago and then sent it to Coway coachbuilders in Bolton to be totally refurbished. The car has been kept at an estate in Perthshire, Scotland where it was mainly used for grouse shooting, and has been garage stored in a ‘bubble’ to maintain ideal air temperature. It has been routinely serviced by Alastair Scott of Abernethy, Perthshire, a recognised Rolls-Royce mechanical engineer, and over the last over seven years has not given any trouble.

Auction estimates price this car somewhere between £12,000 and £16,000 ($19,000 – $25,000) which places this squarely in the bargain of the century category. Unique body style, celebrity ownership, completely restored, and all that Brown, what’s not to love? See the Bonhams Listing here, and if you have the time, take a look at the rest of the offerings here.