Rolls-Royce Phantom III Sedanca de Ville, 1936
Rolls-Royce Phantom III
Rolls-Royce Phantom III•
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Chassis No.: 3AX109
Estimate: £80,000 - £90,000 GBP
- First owned by the Marquess of Queensberry
- Coachwork by Gurney Nutting
- Registration no. DXE 782
- Delivered new in the UK
- Featured in Rolls-Royce The Derby Phantoms (Dalton)
- Previously in the USA
- Little used in recent years
- Recently checked over by a specialist
Rolls-Royce's V12-engined flagship, the Phantom III was, of course, an exclusively coachbuilt automobile. Most of the great British coachbuilding firms offered designs, many of them unique, on the Phantom III chassis. Some of the most widely admired were the work of J Gurney Nutting, which was responsible for bodying this car, chassis number '3AX109'. Gurney Nutting was a company associated with quality marques - Bentley in particular - from its earliest days and a supreme practitioner of the coachbuilding craft in the late 1930s.
Gurney Nutting's work had a sporting flavour from the outset and succeeded in attracting the attention of society's upper echelons; the Prince of Wales and Duke of York were clients, and the firm gained its Royal Warrant in the early 1930s. Daimler and Rolls-Royce had been added to the Gurney Nutting portfolio in the mid-1920s, and the fruitful association with the latter continued into the succeeding decade.
This car features in Lawrence Dalton's book, Rolls-Royce The Derby Phantoms
(page 371) and is recorded in several editions of the Rolls-Royce Owners Club's Directory, commencing in 1962 when the car formed part of the extensive collection of Rolls-Royces owned by William Klein Jr of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. '3AX109' next appears in the 1965 edition in the hands of Fred A Pennington of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and then in the 1976-77 edition while belonging to R D La Penta of Lakeville, Connecticut. The car last appears in the 1980-81 R-ROC Directory while owned by Frank La Coke of Dallas, Texas. It is likely that the rear wheel spats were added in the United States, which is where the car was restored.
Copy photographs of the Phantom undergoing restoration and finished in its current livery (taken in the 'States) are on file together with copies of build details and the R-ROC documentation, and an old V5 in the name of Walter Forrest, who acquired '3AX109' in 1992. Thereafter the Phantom saw little use, venturing out only to attend local shows and concours events.
Recently checked over by a specialist, it is said to run well and does not get hot. The car has just been fitted with a set of new tyres and is described by the vendor as 'superb throughout'. 'DXE 782' comes with complete large and small tool kits; numerous concours trophies; a driver's handbook; and a file containing original documentation. Please note the V5C registration document has been misplaced and will need to re-applied for.
