A Public Appology / Clarrification / Humble Pie.

Attn. David Green

 

I've returned to London for a week or so and am reunited with my precious books and model cars. My first destination was Lawrence Dalton's “The Derby Phantoms”  (I would also recommend his "Those Elegant Rolls Royce”, which is an updated edition of the 1960's "Rolls Royce, The Elegance Continues").

 

The reason was to clarify the matter of delivery dates of Phantom III chassis / finished bodies after Britain and France's declaration of war against Germany in September 1939, from Rolls Royce records as reproduced in the Dalton books.

 

This follows an earlier thread in which I stated that Rolls Royce delivered their final Phantom III chassis in 1941 whereas David contended, (as I understand) that no Chassis were delivered after the pre-September '39 dockets were completed and that my dates likely referred to finished cars delivered by their respective coachbuilders. So here is a presis of Rolls Royce's order books for the 1940 / '41 timeframe. (There are eight post-September '39 chassis listed, which I’ll not repeat here, but these include only one with a British licence and interestingly 3DL176 bodied by Binder for Fritz Schlumpf of Bugatti fame, which I believe is still in the collection).

 

That the respective coachbuilders are in fact listed in the records, demonstrates that David’s contention is CORRECT - that the 1939 Phantom III dockets must have been finished by the Derby works and sent to the listed coachbuilders.

 

That only 3DL122 (as well as 3DL194, mentioned above for 1939) was given a British licence tells us all others listed were for export only.  It is curious that 3DH7 AND 3DH11 are listed as being shipped to the U.S.A. unfinished, yet apparently by Hooper and H.J. Muliner respectively (rather than by Rolls Royce, themselves). Perhaps this suggests that limited recourses  finally took effect?   

 

I am grateful to David for ‘encouraging' me to look again at these details.