First published here in June 2018 and still a very good read…

by Wallace Wyss –

Now there’s celebrity cars, and some people like owning them because at a concours you can drop a line like “Oh, this was the Queen’s…” or “General so-and-so used this as his command car,” yadda yadda.

I have no doubt this car was once sat in, and even frolicked in, by a major female movie star. No less than Jane Fonda who used the car as a prop while starring in an obscure French movie opposite one time French movie heart-throb Alain Delon.

But I liked the car even before she had anything to do with it, when it was commissioned by an eccentric London based Armenian who was the epitome of an English businessman, one Nubar Gulbenkian.

Rolls-Royce’s first post-war model, the Silver Wraith debuted in late 1946 and though it was built on a chassis similar to that of the Silver Dawn and MkVI Bentley, it was grander with a 7” longer wheelbase at a total of 10’ 7”.

The Dawn was whacked out in steel by a regular car body builder but the Wraith was the premium model, intended for traditional coachbuilt bodies, those wrought out of hand hammered aluminum.

The engine was a six, 4,257cc, of cast-iron, with aluminum cylinder head featuring overhead inlet and side exhaust valves. The gearbox was a four-speed manual gearbox at first but then an automatic came along, for export models only at first and then available worldwide.

A longer-wheelbase (11’ 1”) version was introduced as the short-wheelbase ’Wraith ceased in 1952. It’s rare enough to collect (My “magic number” is any production number close to 1000 units) with a total production of 1,144. The car continued right up to the introduction of the Phantom V in 1959, by which time 639 Wraiths had rolled down the line.

I think I missed my chance to buy one back in the ‘60s when I was invited over to a mansion in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and shown one for $3,000. I noticed the garage where it was, a home located on the water that was huge, and asked who owned it and they said “the Dodge brothers.” Oh.

NUBAR’S BUBBLE TOP BABY

At any rate, somehow in the Sixties I became aware of this flamboyant multi-millionaire, Nubar Gulbenkian over in London. Not only did he dress to the nines every day, with ascot ties, a flower in his lapel, a vest with a watch and watch chain, a silver topped cane, spats, etc. he was educated at Harrow and Cambridge.

That won him respect on Fleet Street but more, so one suspects, was the fact he was heir to a Middle Eastern oil fortune which took roughly 5% off the top of BP’s oil imports. He came out of the late 1800s, part of what once was the Ottoman Empire.

One of my favorite Gulbenkian quotes is “the best number for a dinner party is two, myself and a damn good waiter.”

Another is: his declaration that his custom-built London taxicab, “could turn on a sixpence, whatever that is.”

Though before the war he liked fast sports cars, after the war, befitting his senior status, he chose Rolls Royces and commissioned one after the other. One of his first coachbuilts, from the house of Hooper, looked rather like an armored car.

Rolls-Royce reportedly was not amused.

But they didn’t prevent him from buying more Rolls and he commissioned two more from Hooper, a four-door cabriolet and a sedanca de ville, the latter featuring full sage-green lizard-skin trim.

THE BUBBLE TOP CAR

But Gulbenkian’s most famous Roller is the car shown here, one he had built by Hooper for cruising the Cote d’ Azur. It was a left-driver, chassis number LELW74 – which had four-door coachwork, which the auction company described as a saloon but I would say it was a four door convertible, though the top was not removable. But it was see through with a transparent Perspex roof which had an electrically operated fabric inner blind to keep the interior cool.

So he had a top that insured that everybody would know it was him coming.

He also eschewed wood even though Rolls has some of the greatest wood going. He insisted parts normally done in wood be trimmed in leather. He also had a speedometer fitted in the rear passenger compartment so he could see if his chauffeur was “giving it enough stick” (a horseman’s term). And ticked off the boxes for air conditioning, electric windows and a television set, although the latter is long gone.

After Gulbenkian sold the car it appeared in the 1964 motion picture, Les Félins (released in the USA as Joy House and the UK as The Love Cage) which starred Jane Fonda and Alain Delon.

The car was sold on in 1968, on this occasion to René Gourdon, owner of La Belle Étoile dance hall in Nice, France. Now this chap owned a nightclub and he was chauffeured around a bit before parking the car in the basement. Not in a garage but, you read it right, a basement. To which there was no garage door.

Before that he had repainted it the most screaming yellow as if being chauffeured about in a Rolls with a transparent roof wasn’t enough to attract attention. (Maybe there are so many delectable sights to distract the eye on the Riviera, you have to go extra lengths!)

Flash forward 15 years and a London Rolls dealer’s French rep happens by the night club, sees the car over in a basement corner serving as a place to have cocktails, and manages to purchase it. Once he bought it, he was handed a sledgehammer and told it was all right to smash down the wall to extract it, which he dutifully did.

Tapes of Les Félins were reviewed and the decision made to restore the Wraith to its former glory, forgetting its more flamboyant yellow period. Finished in 2007 by Frank Dale & Stepsons, the re-do included a full re-trim and repaint to the original specification (two tone, dark blue and silver grey), re-conditioned chrome and a full mechanical review.

Once the car was restored, it ceased to be so controversial, and is now merely eyebrow raising.

Now as far celebrity ownership, I wouldn’t mind having a car owned by ol’ Nubar, a man who, by all accounts, lived life to its fullest. I would hope to emulate him, though without that weekly check from BP, it would be impossible. I can just see, being at a concours like Pebble, some chap coming up and telling me about seeing Nubar glide by in the car.

But it’s just as likely someone will remember Jane Fonda’s connection. I happened to be in the employ of Uncle Sam briefly during that time she was pictured worldwide, in Hanoi, sitting at the same anti-aircraft gun being used at the time to shoot down Americans. She was so anti-war that she enlisted on the wrong side!

So regardless of her earlier and subsequent thespian accomplishments (including a current hit film), that one promotional effort of hers still sticks in my craw.

When I last saw an ad for the Roller, it was offered at well over 200,000 pounds sterling and I think it’s well worth it, in that it’s a one off. What puts me off, though, is that damn Jane connection…..

Let us know what you think in the Comments.

THE AUTHOR/ARTIST Wallace Wyss first became known as the author of 18 car histories. But now he’s a fine artist doing oil portraits of classic cars.