1929 Rolls-Royce 20HP - rescue project
Discussion
Hello all,
Those who have read my other thread on my 1932 Rolls Royce 20/25 will know that I have somewhat unwittingly found myself as the owner of the mortal remains of a 1929 Rolls Royce 20HP. Given that this year is the centenary of the 20HP's introduction, and that I have made some big steps forwards this week in working out the car's history, I thought it was time the car had a thread of its own!
So this thread entry will be called Introduction!
While I was searching for missing parts to the 20/25, I had the opportunity to visit the location of where it had been stored for the last 50 years.
The previous owner's father has bought the car from a scrap yard in Barking in 1968, with the car in a running condition but with a cracked cylinder head - this issue - often caused by frost damage / corrosion - effected a lot of 20/25s. As a result, he also was on the hunt for some spares to help with the rebuild. At some point - yet to be determined - he bought a job lot of parts to help with the repair, with the key item being the engine with the intact cylinder head. Life then proceeded to get in the way and the rebuild of the 20/25 was never completed.
Fast forwards to 2022 and I had arranged to collect some missing parts of the 20/25 which I had bought at auction in the previous December, along with the purchase of a range of spares to help with the rebuild. Armed with a Luton van with a taillift, I set off to see what could be recovered. I found the remains of the Rolls-Royce and its spares spread over 3 different buildings. However, they were so caked in dirt that is was virtually impossible work out the identity of anything. Muddled up in all of this was an old Austin Seven Ruby and an XJ coupe, so a certain amount of guesswork was needed to try to collect everything. After much effort, it was all loaded up and taken home.
[url]
Once home I was keen to try to sift through what I had bought and identify each piece. The best place to start was the spare engine. I cleaned off the engine number stamping on the block - was that Q7P or O7P?
I consulted the books and worked out that the likely 20/25 candidate was a car - chassis number GDP68 - which had last been seen in 1976. The RREC forum were extremely helpful in guiding me to find other ways of identifying the parts, and one idea raised was that the engine stamp was in fact O7P - and this related to an earlier 1929 20HP Rolls-Royce - GLN76. This car was deemed to be a "lost" car by the RREC 20HP register, as they had no record of it all in the post war era.
After much cleaning and checking, and with the help of the Archive team at the RREC, as well as RREC forum members, I was able to confirm that the engine and steering column recovered were definitely from the "lost" 20HP car - to give it it's full details, from the factory chassis cards:
- a 1929 20HP, chassis number GLN76, "NB" series, engine number 07P, registration UR3633, off test 01.03.1929, originally fitted with a 4 door Hooper saloon body (dark blue and black, with fine blue line and blue leather, with division).
- It was sold new to Mr W N Watson by the Aylesbury Motor Co. It returned to the works on a few occasions before being sold as a "complete car, as it stands, the whole in used condition" to a Mr J Compton in June 1937 for £170. Mr W N Watson was allowed £150 in part payment for GRO35 (25/30HP).
- the last entry in the works records is for the sale of a decarbonising kit in November 1937 to Mr Compton...
To get a feeling of what GLN76 would have looked like when new, I have dug up the following:
This image is of a 1929 20HP – but fitted with a Park Ward body. The Hooper saloon body would have probably been similar to this and it is close in terms of exterior colour.
This is where I had got to a few days ago, until an email as part of the hunt for parts for the 20/25, sent the trail off into a very different direction….
Take care,
AF
Those who have read my other thread on my 1932 Rolls Royce 20/25 will know that I have somewhat unwittingly found myself as the owner of the mortal remains of a 1929 Rolls Royce 20HP. Given that this year is the centenary of the 20HP's introduction, and that I have made some big steps forwards this week in working out the car's history, I thought it was time the car had a thread of its own!
So this thread entry will be called Introduction!
While I was searching for missing parts to the 20/25, I had the opportunity to visit the location of where it had been stored for the last 50 years.
The previous owner's father has bought the car from a scrap yard in Barking in 1968, with the car in a running condition but with a cracked cylinder head - this issue - often caused by frost damage / corrosion - effected a lot of 20/25s. As a result, he also was on the hunt for some spares to help with the rebuild. At some point - yet to be determined - he bought a job lot of parts to help with the repair, with the key item being the engine with the intact cylinder head. Life then proceeded to get in the way and the rebuild of the 20/25 was never completed.
Fast forwards to 2022 and I had arranged to collect some missing parts of the 20/25 which I had bought at auction in the previous December, along with the purchase of a range of spares to help with the rebuild. Armed with a Luton van with a taillift, I set off to see what could be recovered. I found the remains of the Rolls-Royce and its spares spread over 3 different buildings. However, they were so caked in dirt that is was virtually impossible work out the identity of anything. Muddled up in all of this was an old Austin Seven Ruby and an XJ coupe, so a certain amount of guesswork was needed to try to collect everything. After much effort, it was all loaded up and taken home.
[url]Once home I was keen to try to sift through what I had bought and identify each piece. The best place to start was the spare engine. I cleaned off the engine number stamping on the block - was that Q7P or O7P?
I consulted the books and worked out that the likely 20/25 candidate was a car - chassis number GDP68 - which had last been seen in 1976. The RREC forum were extremely helpful in guiding me to find other ways of identifying the parts, and one idea raised was that the engine stamp was in fact O7P - and this related to an earlier 1929 20HP Rolls-Royce - GLN76. This car was deemed to be a "lost" car by the RREC 20HP register, as they had no record of it all in the post war era.
After much cleaning and checking, and with the help of the Archive team at the RREC, as well as RREC forum members, I was able to confirm that the engine and steering column recovered were definitely from the "lost" 20HP car - to give it it's full details, from the factory chassis cards:
- a 1929 20HP, chassis number GLN76, "NB" series, engine number 07P, registration UR3633, off test 01.03.1929, originally fitted with a 4 door Hooper saloon body (dark blue and black, with fine blue line and blue leather, with division).
- It was sold new to Mr W N Watson by the Aylesbury Motor Co. It returned to the works on a few occasions before being sold as a "complete car, as it stands, the whole in used condition" to a Mr J Compton in June 1937 for £170. Mr W N Watson was allowed £150 in part payment for GRO35 (25/30HP).
- the last entry in the works records is for the sale of a decarbonising kit in November 1937 to Mr Compton...
To get a feeling of what GLN76 would have looked like when new, I have dug up the following:
This image is of a 1929 20HP – but fitted with a Park Ward body. The Hooper saloon body would have probably been similar to this and it is close in terms of exterior colour.
This is where I had got to a few days ago, until an email as part of the hunt for parts for the 20/25, sent the trail off into a very different direction….
Take care,
AF
Thanks for the comment Scrump - all is slowly becoming a little clearer.
Thread update - Oxo cubes and a film star!
From further research done over the weekend, I now have a pretty good idea about the early life of the car. This only came about through a chance email and the very generous people who love their Rolls-Royce history who were happy to help.
I fired off an email enquiry to the The Real Car Company in Bethesda, Wales, to see if they had any second hand exhaust manifolds for my 20/25, as it was clear that the pile of bits I had bought didn't have one. I mentioned in passing the acquisition of the second car and Sue - their resident history expert - kindly spent a lot of time and effort digging out some real gems for me on the history side. Using her extensive experience and the company's vast array of historical documents, she was able to tell me more about the first owner and also of a potential later sighting.
The first owner was a William Neal Watson - who was the Managing Director of Oxo Ltd, the famous gravy / sauce makers, as well as an advertising agency. This explains how he had the means to buy a Rolls-Royce just as the storm clouds of the Great Depression were looming. I have more to find out about his background, but he seems to have held on to the car until 1937.
At this point he sold it to J Compton - who Sue rightly pointed out to me was "Jack Compton" - the car dealers located near Crystal Palace in London. This was where the trail had gone cold - but for a small note in a database saying "1941 Cottage to Let" - this suggested that the car appeared in a film in 1941.
So I dug out the film on Youtube and spent an age trawling through it frame by frame. It is a wartime spy thriller, based in Scotland, where the Nazi spies are trying to kidnap the inventor of a new highly accurate bombsight! After much searching, I did find the car - with the correct registration number (UR3633), however, the car in this film is not a Hooper bodied saloon. It looks more like a later bodied car - maybe mid 1930's, with very distinctive rear windows - see below for the stills from the film:
If you would like to see the moving images - go to 58min 12s and 1hr 51s!
With some more help from Sue, we managed to pin down some likely candidates for the rebodying - Southern, Coachcraft and Ranalah - all doing work in the late 1930s to "update" older cars with more modern bodies, often as a lucrative sideline to the dwindling coachbuilt demand on new cars.
I then turned to the respected Rolls-Royce coachwork historian James Taylor, who's latest book "Coachwork on Rolls-Royce Twenty, 20/25, 25/30 and Wraith 1922 - 1939" has been very useful in my recent research. He was able to corroborate the work Sue and I had done, and he thought that it was likely to have been one of the 3 builders we had identified. See below for an example of a 20HP with a Coachcraft rebody.
Both Sue and James identified that Jack Compton had a close connection to Ranalah in the 1930's - with the advert below showing how they produced what they called "Replica" Rolls-Royces.
I felt that the distinctive rear window design would surely be the key to unlocking the identity of the builder - and sure enough - with a high resolution copy of the advert and a comparison to the stills from the film, the split rear window design is very much in evidence. My thanks to Sue to giving me the direction and for James for seeing what I had missed in the advert!
So - that moves the history on a lot. A 1929 20HP Hooper saloon, which was owned by the MD of Oxo, was rebodied by Ranalah (presumably under direction from Comptons) and subsequently starred in a wartime spy thriller! Quite how it became a box of bits is still a mystery, but I am told that the previous owner's father bought them privately in the 1960's from an advert in Exchange and Mart. The ad may still exist and might provide details (at least a phone number?) about the seller.... but all this is for the future.
In answer to Scrump's earlier question - so far I can only confirm that the engine and steering column part numbers match to GLN76. With time, I will get the axles suitably cleaned up to get their ID's sorted (but it does look promising - they appear to be too early to be 20/25HP axles), as well as going through the boxes of bits to see what else lines up.
Hope you enjoyed the update,
Take care,
AF
Thread update - Oxo cubes and a film star!
From further research done over the weekend, I now have a pretty good idea about the early life of the car. This only came about through a chance email and the very generous people who love their Rolls-Royce history who were happy to help.
I fired off an email enquiry to the The Real Car Company in Bethesda, Wales, to see if they had any second hand exhaust manifolds for my 20/25, as it was clear that the pile of bits I had bought didn't have one. I mentioned in passing the acquisition of the second car and Sue - their resident history expert - kindly spent a lot of time and effort digging out some real gems for me on the history side. Using her extensive experience and the company's vast array of historical documents, she was able to tell me more about the first owner and also of a potential later sighting.
The first owner was a William Neal Watson - who was the Managing Director of Oxo Ltd, the famous gravy / sauce makers, as well as an advertising agency. This explains how he had the means to buy a Rolls-Royce just as the storm clouds of the Great Depression were looming. I have more to find out about his background, but he seems to have held on to the car until 1937.
At this point he sold it to J Compton - who Sue rightly pointed out to me was "Jack Compton" - the car dealers located near Crystal Palace in London. This was where the trail had gone cold - but for a small note in a database saying "1941 Cottage to Let" - this suggested that the car appeared in a film in 1941.
So I dug out the film on Youtube and spent an age trawling through it frame by frame. It is a wartime spy thriller, based in Scotland, where the Nazi spies are trying to kidnap the inventor of a new highly accurate bombsight! After much searching, I did find the car - with the correct registration number (UR3633), however, the car in this film is not a Hooper bodied saloon. It looks more like a later bodied car - maybe mid 1930's, with very distinctive rear windows - see below for the stills from the film:
If you would like to see the moving images - go to 58min 12s and 1hr 51s!
With some more help from Sue, we managed to pin down some likely candidates for the rebodying - Southern, Coachcraft and Ranalah - all doing work in the late 1930s to "update" older cars with more modern bodies, often as a lucrative sideline to the dwindling coachbuilt demand on new cars.
I then turned to the respected Rolls-Royce coachwork historian James Taylor, who's latest book "Coachwork on Rolls-Royce Twenty, 20/25, 25/30 and Wraith 1922 - 1939" has been very useful in my recent research. He was able to corroborate the work Sue and I had done, and he thought that it was likely to have been one of the 3 builders we had identified. See below for an example of a 20HP with a Coachcraft rebody.
Both Sue and James identified that Jack Compton had a close connection to Ranalah in the 1930's - with the advert below showing how they produced what they called "Replica" Rolls-Royces.
I felt that the distinctive rear window design would surely be the key to unlocking the identity of the builder - and sure enough - with a high resolution copy of the advert and a comparison to the stills from the film, the split rear window design is very much in evidence. My thanks to Sue to giving me the direction and for James for seeing what I had missed in the advert!
So - that moves the history on a lot. A 1929 20HP Hooper saloon, which was owned by the MD of Oxo, was rebodied by Ranalah (presumably under direction from Comptons) and subsequently starred in a wartime spy thriller! Quite how it became a box of bits is still a mystery, but I am told that the previous owner's father bought them privately in the 1960's from an advert in Exchange and Mart. The ad may still exist and might provide details (at least a phone number?) about the seller.... but all this is for the future.
In answer to Scrump's earlier question - so far I can only confirm that the engine and steering column part numbers match to GLN76. With time, I will get the axles suitably cleaned up to get their ID's sorted (but it does look promising - they appear to be too early to be 20/25HP axles), as well as going through the boxes of bits to see what else lines up.
Hope you enjoyed the update,
Take care,
AF
Sir,
I too have rescued a 1929 20hp this year. I take my hat off to you, despite 60 years of idleness my car is in much and I do mean 'much' better condition than yours. Your project makes me almost ashamed.
I was feeling rather virtuous having re fettled the front springs, a broken leaf and reduced camber, and replaced the wheel bearings and given her new leather gaiters. (Jones Springs Ltd Wednesbury) until i came upon your post.
I seem to have sorted the over heating. I replaced the odd bit of old wire, 'dead' rubber insulation, Replaced a glass in the driver's door and a bit of body work, mostly my fault. The Auto vac responded to a cleaning and new cork washers, it then needed longer bolts. Some of the pipework work I had to burn out the residue of something and annealed them at the same time. Cracks in the central lubrication pipes i patched with brass and silver solder.
i call it garage pilates, dropping things on the floor and getting down to find them only to drop them again!
As a result i have:-
A Telegauge, the fuel gauge that weighed the weight of fuel against a column of terabromoethane dyed pink. That fluid is no longer readily available because it was found to be very carcinogenic and the Telegauges were never very reliable and were replaced in 1932 I believe. It is complete and had been refurbished by the P.O. but leaked at the glass / micro bore copper tube junction. (The 'new' fuel gauge reads "E" for enough ., and "F" for fill-up ,please. And I thought that the electrics would be simple !)
I also have a worn linkage for the accelerator that is bolted onto the engine side of the bulkhead so the movement is in line with the carb. The old one just needs someone to rebush its journals. The PO sold it to me.
I also have an old Lucas "King of the road" bulb horn (needs a new bulb) old enough to have "patent applied for" said to be off an elderly Roller many years ago. The one on the car has a patent number so must be younger.
i shall follow your progress with interest. Good luck for 1923
H.P.
I too have rescued a 1929 20hp this year. I take my hat off to you, despite 60 years of idleness my car is in much and I do mean 'much' better condition than yours. Your project makes me almost ashamed.
I was feeling rather virtuous having re fettled the front springs, a broken leaf and reduced camber, and replaced the wheel bearings and given her new leather gaiters. (Jones Springs Ltd Wednesbury) until i came upon your post.
I seem to have sorted the over heating. I replaced the odd bit of old wire, 'dead' rubber insulation, Replaced a glass in the driver's door and a bit of body work, mostly my fault. The Auto vac responded to a cleaning and new cork washers, it then needed longer bolts. Some of the pipework work I had to burn out the residue of something and annealed them at the same time. Cracks in the central lubrication pipes i patched with brass and silver solder.
i call it garage pilates, dropping things on the floor and getting down to find them only to drop them again!
As a result i have:-
A Telegauge, the fuel gauge that weighed the weight of fuel against a column of terabromoethane dyed pink. That fluid is no longer readily available because it was found to be very carcinogenic and the Telegauges were never very reliable and were replaced in 1932 I believe. It is complete and had been refurbished by the P.O. but leaked at the glass / micro bore copper tube junction. (The 'new' fuel gauge reads "E" for enough ., and "F" for fill-up ,please. And I thought that the electrics would be simple !)
I also have a worn linkage for the accelerator that is bolted onto the engine side of the bulkhead so the movement is in line with the carb. The old one just needs someone to rebush its journals. The PO sold it to me.
I also have an old Lucas "King of the road" bulb horn (needs a new bulb) old enough to have "patent applied for" said to be off an elderly Roller many years ago. The one on the car has a patent number so must be younger.
i shall follow your progress with interest. Good luck for 1923
H.P.
Morning all!
I have just seen these new replies to my 20HP thread - I am always amazed that my vintage R-R projects get any following on PH! It is brilliant that people are still interested in them.
To answer a few questions:
Right... time to start on that next update (once I have made another coffee!)
AF
I have just seen these new replies to my 20HP thread - I am always amazed that my vintage R-R projects get any following on PH! It is brilliant that people are still interested in them.
To answer a few questions:
1minifreak said:
Did you sell the 20hp parts???
No - not yet! I have at last collated them all into one place and worked out what belongs to which car.....I think this will be the subject of the next update!HedleyOne said:
Sir,
I too have rescued a 1929 20hp this year. I take my hat off to you, despite 60 years of idleness my car is in much and I do mean 'much' better condition than yours. Your project makes me almost ashamed.
......
i shall follow your progress with interest. Good luck for 2023.
H.P.
@ HedleyOne - welcome! It is brilliant to meet another 20HP owner. I would love to know more about your car. Do you have any pictures? Which chassis number is it? I would love to see a full thread on another (much more complete!) 20HP on PH. Do you know much about the car's history? Lord Flashheart is writing a lovely thread on the ongoing restoration and use of his family 20/25 (see "The Rolls Royce 20/25 restoration thread") and there are a few other vintage car owners (R-R and other) who pop up here (ntiz's 3 litre Bentley thread is another one of my favourites).I too have rescued a 1929 20hp this year. I take my hat off to you, despite 60 years of idleness my car is in much and I do mean 'much' better condition than yours. Your project makes me almost ashamed.
......
i shall follow your progress with interest. Good luck for 2023.
H.P.
V8 FOU said:
And another 20HP here!! GZK70
Belongs to an old school friend of mine. In reasonable condition. rolling chassis and rebuilt engine, wheels, etc. The body should be a doctors coupe - but it is just the wood at the moment..
I think he may be selling.
@ V8 FOU - ah, another 20HP surfaces! Brilliant. From a quick search it seems that GZK70 was originally a Windovers coupe - there are some images from the sale of the car by the Real Car Company in 2016 floating around the 'net. It looks like the basis for a really good project - as you say, much of the rolling chassis / powertrain looks in good condition - with the chance for someone to make a lovely body for it. Again - any chance that the owner could do their own thread for the car? What's the story behind it? If they are looking to sell, there are some good outlets available - RCC, the RROC forum "for sale" listings etc....Belongs to an old school friend of mine. In reasonable condition. rolling chassis and rebuilt engine, wheels, etc. The body should be a doctors coupe - but it is just the wood at the moment..
I think he may be selling.
Right... time to start on that next update (once I have made another coffee!)
AF
yes please! all updates welcome.
Very interesting that a rebodied car they decided to call is a "replica", even though R-R intended the body to be made to the customers choice without any R-R involvement, and, in the early Edwardian age it wasn't uncommon to have chassis rebodied for summer and winter seasons.
Imagine the raised eyebrows these days if the auction house decided to sell a "barn find" and called them a "replica"!!
Very interesting that a rebodied car they decided to call is a "replica", even though R-R intended the body to be made to the customers choice without any R-R involvement, and, in the early Edwardian age it wasn't uncommon to have chassis rebodied for summer and winter seasons.
Imagine the raised eyebrows these days if the auction house decided to sell a "barn find" and called them a "replica"!!
So,
Having kicked this thread back into life, time to share the latest on the 20HP project.
We left the story back in June 2022, when I had managed to work out something about the interesting history of this "film star" car! I cannot stress how generous all the people involved have been with the research aspect of this. To anyone wanting to find more about their vintage R-R, I'd say go for it - it can be incredibly rewarding and it will certainly take you places you were not expecting!
I have managed to find some more images of the type of coach work which GLN76 would have worn, in its later configuration. These pages, over on coachbuild.com, give some great examples of Ranalah bodies on R-R chassis:
https://coachbuild.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5204
However, back to the history.. I wanted to try to push the story back from the point at which the "boxes of spares" (which contained the mortal remains of GLN76) were bought from an address in Dagenham. However, I didn't have much to go on...
This was all I had of the original (Exchange & Mart?) advert - an poor fuzzy image of an advert clipping, stapled to the original buff logbook of my later 20/25. As I still haven't been able to recover the physical logbook, this was where I started! Hardly promising!
With a bit of squinting, I think I managed to get the gist of the text in the advert. Using the address given, I spent a long time trawling googlemaps and I found that the layout of the area of Dagenham I was interested in had changed completely since the late 1960's. The address I was looking for (16 Crown Street) had been demolished some time around 1967 - 1968! Teresa Trowers at Valence House Archive & Local Studies Centre (the local Dagenham history museum) was very kind in helping orientate me around the redevelopment of the area and provided me with a number of detailed local maps. I managed to combine these to produce the following image, showing the address from where the parts were sold from:
I then turned to the local history Facebook pages, who again were very kind with their ideas and suggestions as to who and how these parts came to be in Dagenham.
The intriguing ending to this part of the story was a suggestion from a former resident of Dagenham that the person involved in selling the parts might have been one "Jim Brown" - a local car sprayer, who had worked for their father in the motor trade in the 1960's and may also have had some connection to P&A Wood - the noted Rolls-Royce restorers, who were starting off in the mid 1960's. I couldn't find anyone at P&A who remembered Jim, so for now the trail goes cold - but the image below, I am reasonably certain, are Jim's premises, just off Crown Street.
So jumping forwards to November 2022, I had managed to sort my garage out to give me the space to recover the parts to GLN76, which had been in storage at a friend's house.
For the first time, I was able to lay out all the parts of GLN76, more or less in car-line, to get a feeling for what the "boxes of bits" contained.
The pile of wheels at the back of the image turned out to be nothing to do with GLN76 - I believe they come from a post 1933 Rolls-Royce Phantom 2...
I also managed to make some progress in getting the cylinder head off my 20/25 and confirming that it was from the 20HP - incorrectly fitted by the previous owner in the late 1960's.
At last, all the 20HP parts are now together in one place! After much thinking, I have decided to sell them - either as a job lot to someone to support the restoration of their 20HP or I shall split them up and sell them on individually. The scale of the challenge of rebuilding a complete car as GLN76 is too much for me at present - the 20/25 is much more complete and that will be one hell of a project in its own right!
One last thought, looking back at the original fuzzy advert - the advert mis-described the parts for sale. Had it not been for this, the 20/25 for which they were bought would have been repaired and probably wouldn't have ended up with me, after 50 years neglected in a barn. It is funny how these little things play out in the end.
Take care,
AF
Having kicked this thread back into life, time to share the latest on the 20HP project.
We left the story back in June 2022, when I had managed to work out something about the interesting history of this "film star" car! I cannot stress how generous all the people involved have been with the research aspect of this. To anyone wanting to find more about their vintage R-R, I'd say go for it - it can be incredibly rewarding and it will certainly take you places you were not expecting!
I have managed to find some more images of the type of coach work which GLN76 would have worn, in its later configuration. These pages, over on coachbuild.com, give some great examples of Ranalah bodies on R-R chassis:
https://coachbuild.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5204
However, back to the history.. I wanted to try to push the story back from the point at which the "boxes of spares" (which contained the mortal remains of GLN76) were bought from an address in Dagenham. However, I didn't have much to go on...
This was all I had of the original (Exchange & Mart?) advert - an poor fuzzy image of an advert clipping, stapled to the original buff logbook of my later 20/25. As I still haven't been able to recover the physical logbook, this was where I started! Hardly promising!
With a bit of squinting, I think I managed to get the gist of the text in the advert. Using the address given, I spent a long time trawling googlemaps and I found that the layout of the area of Dagenham I was interested in had changed completely since the late 1960's. The address I was looking for (16 Crown Street) had been demolished some time around 1967 - 1968! Teresa Trowers at Valence House Archive & Local Studies Centre (the local Dagenham history museum) was very kind in helping orientate me around the redevelopment of the area and provided me with a number of detailed local maps. I managed to combine these to produce the following image, showing the address from where the parts were sold from:
I then turned to the local history Facebook pages, who again were very kind with their ideas and suggestions as to who and how these parts came to be in Dagenham.
The intriguing ending to this part of the story was a suggestion from a former resident of Dagenham that the person involved in selling the parts might have been one "Jim Brown" - a local car sprayer, who had worked for their father in the motor trade in the 1960's and may also have had some connection to P&A Wood - the noted Rolls-Royce restorers, who were starting off in the mid 1960's. I couldn't find anyone at P&A who remembered Jim, so for now the trail goes cold - but the image below, I am reasonably certain, are Jim's premises, just off Crown Street.
So jumping forwards to November 2022, I had managed to sort my garage out to give me the space to recover the parts to GLN76, which had been in storage at a friend's house.
For the first time, I was able to lay out all the parts of GLN76, more or less in car-line, to get a feeling for what the "boxes of bits" contained.
The pile of wheels at the back of the image turned out to be nothing to do with GLN76 - I believe they come from a post 1933 Rolls-Royce Phantom 2...
I also managed to make some progress in getting the cylinder head off my 20/25 and confirming that it was from the 20HP - incorrectly fitted by the previous owner in the late 1960's.
At last, all the 20HP parts are now together in one place! After much thinking, I have decided to sell them - either as a job lot to someone to support the restoration of their 20HP or I shall split them up and sell them on individually. The scale of the challenge of rebuilding a complete car as GLN76 is too much for me at present - the 20/25 is much more complete and that will be one hell of a project in its own right!
One last thought, looking back at the original fuzzy advert - the advert mis-described the parts for sale. Had it not been for this, the 20/25 for which they were bought would have been repaired and probably wouldn't have ended up with me, after 50 years neglected in a barn. It is funny how these little things play out in the end.
Take care,
AF
Moderator edit: no advertising please
Hi Andy, this is an amazing story and truly interesting story, I now can understand your comments made when speaking about my 20hp. It is such a shame that there weren't more parts, it deserves being built up,but the cost would exceed its value too much. I only found this post by chance,trying to research info on mine, I look forward to the updates on the 20/25.
Morning!
I am pleased you like the story of my 20HP (or its remains!). The research into the history of these cars is one of the real sources of pleasure. Due to their age and original cost, they were bought by "interesting" people -> and these people are the sort that seem to have left their mark on history, in the sense that their lives and actions seem to get recorded.
I wish you lots of luck with researching the history of your 1928 Rolls-Royce 20hp Flewitt D-back Limousine. I presume you got a decent set of paperwork with it, when you bought it? There are often all sorts of traces and hints spread through any set of paperwork, which can then guide and lead you to other discoveries -> as I hope you can see from the research I have done on GLN76!
I am sure you know already, but any self respecting 20HP owner should get themselves copies of the following:
- The Rolls-Royce 20 - by John Fasal
- Small HP brake systems - by R Haynes
- Small HP engines - by R Haynes & R Grigsby
- Catalogue of Parts 20HP
- Service Instructions for RR Cars - Technical Service Document 2066
- General Arrangement drawings on CD
For more of the history of the coachwork on your car, I'd recommend James Taylor's excellent book "Coachwork on the Rolls-Royce Twenty, 20/25, 25/30 and Wraith 1922 - 1939". It gives some brilliant insights into the companies, who alongside Rolls-Royce, contributed to the design and construction of these cars through their coachwork and trimming skills. It shows how rare some of these cars are - your car, for example, is one of only 9 limousines constructed on the 20HP chassis by Flewitt and one of only 2 completed in 1928 - > so as rare as any multi-million pound exotic!
Please get a Reader's Cars thread running for your car! And let know if I can help out with any of your research or technical questions....
Take care,
AF
I am pleased you like the story of my 20HP (or its remains!). The research into the history of these cars is one of the real sources of pleasure. Due to their age and original cost, they were bought by "interesting" people -> and these people are the sort that seem to have left their mark on history, in the sense that their lives and actions seem to get recorded.
I wish you lots of luck with researching the history of your 1928 Rolls-Royce 20hp Flewitt D-back Limousine. I presume you got a decent set of paperwork with it, when you bought it? There are often all sorts of traces and hints spread through any set of paperwork, which can then guide and lead you to other discoveries -> as I hope you can see from the research I have done on GLN76!
I am sure you know already, but any self respecting 20HP owner should get themselves copies of the following:
- The Rolls-Royce 20 - by John Fasal
- Small HP brake systems - by R Haynes
- Small HP engines - by R Haynes & R Grigsby
- Catalogue of Parts 20HP
- Service Instructions for RR Cars - Technical Service Document 2066
- General Arrangement drawings on CD
For more of the history of the coachwork on your car, I'd recommend James Taylor's excellent book "Coachwork on the Rolls-Royce Twenty, 20/25, 25/30 and Wraith 1922 - 1939". It gives some brilliant insights into the companies, who alongside Rolls-Royce, contributed to the design and construction of these cars through their coachwork and trimming skills. It shows how rare some of these cars are - your car, for example, is one of only 9 limousines constructed on the 20HP chassis by Flewitt and one of only 2 completed in 1928 - > so as rare as any multi-million pound exotic!
Please get a Reader's Cars thread running for your car! And let know if I can help out with any of your research or technical questions....
Take care,
AF
Hi Andy, thanks for the reply, it's such a shame that you didn't have more parts of your 20hp, I've started researching the history of mine and have a good start, the archives at Hunt House are brilliant. I know the owners from new up to ww2,then the trail goes cold as she went to the states until 2010 when she was brought back. I'm trying to find ways to search in the USA now of owners. Real Car Company, had a folder but main,y on work done on it as it was completely stripped , ut then the owner ran into financial problems, from there it gets interesting again, but unfortunately the parts have been changed from then to how it is now. I've noticed some parts sold recently that may have been off her, but it's too late for them now, I'm now looking at what the best option is to do with it as there are loads of pre war cars on the Market, that require less work if any than mine. I sadly missed an original manual the other day, I'm sure there will be one at the annual rally this year. Thanks for the advice also, I have several books in my collection as my uncle was in the Rolls trade for over 50 years, I've still got my library boxed up from moving, I'll get them unpacked before the rally as I'm sure any that I'm missing will be available there, I didn’t realise that my car was as rare as that,it is encouraging to now, you are a mine of information. When I get caught up with my house renovation a bit more, I'll have time to sit down and start to collate all the details together and start a post if you think it of interest, mind you I'm not too hot on technical stuff.
Edited by Fenland vintage on Saturday 18th March 23:43
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