In anyone’s language the 1924 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost of Rex Vincent is an imposing motor car. Yes, at over 17-feet it’s quite large, and there is plenty of brass along with many other fittings to admire, but when it’s all together the car just commands attention through its stature. It’s that sort of car, and getting behind the wheel and looking over that famous radiator you feel as if you are in charge of not only the car, but also the road.
First produced in 1906, the Silver Ghost, or the Rolls-Royce 40/50 hp as it was first called, was the model that put the fledgling English company on the automotive map. It would go on to be called the “Best car in the world!” A term coined not by Rolls-Royce, but in 1907 by the famed UK publication Autocar.
With his own electrical and mechanical business up and running in Manchester for 20 years, Henry Royce produced his first car in 1904. Royce was fastidious to the point of perfection, so much so that the two-cylinder Royce 10 soon found high favor with Charles Rolls, the proprietor of C.S.Rolls & Co. an early motor car sales outlet in the Fulham area of London. It was Rolls’ suggestion that his dealership should be the sole distributor of Royce’s cars, but that they be badged as Rolls-Royce. The first of which was unveiled at the Paris Salon of December 1904.
Rolls-Royce Limited was formed in March 1906 with a range of two-, three-, four- and six-cylinder cars on the books. Mild success followed, sufficient that the factory at Manchester soon became far too small for the company’s growing needs. Close to 13 acres were acquired about 80 miles away at Derby, a location that would go on to be synonymous with the marque. The new Derby factory opened during the summer of 1908.
In the interim, Henry Royce had been working on developing a six-cylinder engine that would not only develop more power, but do so far more smoothly. The result was a seven-liter, straight-six with its cylinders cast in two groups of three and sharing a common crankcase. The previous six had its cylinders cast in three groups of two. The engine was fitted with a seven-bearing crankshaft with full pressure lubrication. However, the center bearing was far larger than the others, thus providing for less vibration, which also virtually split the engine into two. The engine was also fitted with twin spark plugs per cylinder and while on early units the spark was provided by a trembler coil, the later engines were served by a magneto or distributor arrangement.
The model powered by this new engine was the first all-new vehicle for the fledgling company, and was simply called the Rolls-Royce 40/50 with production commencing in 1907 at the Manchester works.
Silver Ghost
The managing director of Rolls-Royce Limited at the time was Claude Johnson, who ordered a single car to be produced as a demonstrator. Chassis number 60551 was the 12th 40/50 Rolls-Royce to be produced and understandably it received accoutrements different than the cars that were going to customers. The car was fitted with an open body by the coachbuilder Barker, and everything was either painted in an aluminium-based paint or was silver plated. This individual car was called the “Silver Ghost” by the Rolls-Royce factory and it bore a plaque on its bulkhead to attest this. “Silver” because of its color and “Ghost” due to it ghost-like and silent operation. Johnson also wanted it known that a quiet car need not be slow.
In those early days of motoring, cars were considered to be unreliable, and it was a popular move by manufacturers to enter cars in reliability trials and later to promote its success…or keep quiet if it was otherwise! The Silver Ghost, with Claude Johnson at the wheel, won a gold medal in the 1907 Scottish reliability trials, which was followed by a 15,000-mile test that included Rolls himself undertaking quite a bit of the driving. All of which was under the scrutiny of the Royal Automobile Club (RAC). After the test, the car was completely dismantled under the watchful eyes of the RAC officials, who found that it had the equivalent of three years use. History tells us that the Silver Ghost performed admirably and, of course, Rolls-Royce undertook appropriate publicity for the model that led to the desired increase in orders.
The original Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost was sold in 1908 to a private customer, but was repurchased by the company in 1948 and today is owned by Bentley Motors Limited, which is a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG.
One Model
In early 1908, Claude Johnson persuaded Royce and other Rolls-Royce directors that the company should concentrate entirely on the new 40/50, resulting in the discontinuation of other models.
Production continued through to the commencement of World War I when it was assumed that the demand for luxury cars would cease. However Rolls-Royce made the decision that its 40/50 would be made available as staff cars and ambulances. It was, though, unknown at that time that the model would undertake a far greater task.
At the start of the Great War the British army, apart from a number of trucks, had little in the way of mechanized transport and no armored fighting vehicles. Just one month after the commencement of WWI, the first standard Rolls-Royce 40/50 chassis was being prepared for active service. In total, 319 40/50 chassis were used in the War, with the bulk serving as armored cars in areas as diverse as Russia, Palestine and Arabia. Perhaps the most famous were the armored cars used by T.E. Lawrence or, as he was better known, “Lawrence of Arabia”.
Following hostilities, production resumed of the 40/50 at Derby, but it was a time for an interesting, albeit unsuccessful, expansion into the U.S. market.
While the U.S. market was a small one for Rolls-Royce, it was an important one and certainly one that the company wished to expand. However, the very high tariffs on imported cars to the U.S. were crippling. So, in November 1919, Rolls-Royce of America Inc. was formed with the express purpose of producing the 40/50. A disused factory in Springfield, Massachusetts, was chosen and purchased from the American Wire Wheel Company.
Apart from the crankshafts, wheels and some electrical components, the Springfield Rolls-Royce was an entirely U.S.-manufactured motor car, and the cars had a certain American air about them. Unlike the UK, where the Rolls-Royce was sold as a rolling chassis only, the Springfield-built cars were sold complete with bodywork. Curiously, the Springfield cars were first sold in right-hand drive with LHD versions not available until just before the Rolls-Royce American outpost closed its doors in 1935.
In the UK, production of the 40/50 continued on until 1925, the same year as the launch of the new Rolls-Royce Phantom. It was with the release of the Phantom that Rolls-Royce Limited itself commenced referring to the 40/50 as the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, a practice that had been in place among the motoring press and general public for some years beforehand.
In total, there were 6,173 Silver Ghosts built at Derby, and 1,701 made at Springfield.
Rex’s Ghost
Like so many of us, Rex Vincent has been involved in older cars for most of his motoring career. As a young lad in his late teens, Rex’s first car was a 1937 Coventry Climax-powered Morgan 4/4 that he kept for about three years until it was replaced with a slightly more modern Morgan. So enamored did he become with the anachronistic British sports car that at one stage he had four of them—two with four-cylinder Triumph engines and the other two with Rover V8 power.
When Rex bought his first Morgan, he paid the princely sum of £100 for the car, but sold it for £220 in 1959. Rex became Morgan-less during the ’70s when pressures of business turned his attention elsewhere. Many years later, in a fit of emotion, he bought back his first Morgan 4/4 from a deceased estate for $18,000. Unfortunately, it needs more than a little bit of work and sits in his garage as the next project.
While the late 1980s found Rex still very much tied up with business and modern cars, he decided that he would very much like to find a vintage car, because he enjoyed the camaraderie of car clubs and the cars themselves.
“I decided that I didn’t want another Morgan, because they are quite small,” Rex allowed. “So I hunted around for a time, while not really sure what I wanted—until I found the Ghost. At that time, the market was very bullish and I was quite happy to find a Vauxhall 30/98, a good Lambda, Bentley or a Rolls-Royce. It was really just a matter of what you could find and what you could afford. The market then was bordering on being just crazy and you could actually get more for the cars than what you can get now.”
“I found a Ghost that was part of a deceased estate and made an offer, only to be told that I was second in line and that the chap who was first was taking it. In response, I went out and bought a Silver Spirit, but of course, as soon as I did I received a call saying that the Ghost was available again and was mine if I still wanted it. So, that’s how I ended up with two Rolls-Royces.”
Ghost History
“Ghosts came to Australia from the earliest days of their production,” Rex added. “They were popular with the well-to-do, landed families or cockies (grazier or rancher), as the car was built like a truck and would go almost anywhere, like around creek beds, up mountains or any place a man on the land would want to go. They are a very robust tractor!”
“The Silver Ghost had a devout following in Australia and the factory used to send a mechanic to this country, by ship, every 12 months and he would service all the cars. Then every 50,000 miles the cars were to be returned to the factory in the UK for a complete overhaul. This was all part of the Rolls-Royce way of looking after their customers until the early 1920s when a couple of trained engineers were sent here to open a Rolls-Royce agency.”
“While there were quite a few Ghosts sold new in Australia, there were also a number imported into the country during the 1930s by a gentleman by the name of Palfreyman. During the Depression, it was common to see such cars in the streets of London as people couldn’t afford to put fuel into them. They could be bought very cheaply and quite a few were taken to the U.S. and also to Australia. As far as I understand, my car was imported as a rolling chassis into Australia during the early ’50s. The cars often arrived in Australia without bodies as frankly the early coachbuilt bodies, while beautifully made, just weren’t suitable for our roads. Now people would dream about having an original coachbuilt body, but actually if it was I would be surprised if the car would ever be used, as the bodywork just wouldn’t last. When it arrived in Victoria it was bought by a bus company that had eight hire cars which included four Ghosts, three Packards and a Buick.”
“This meant that the cars did quite a lot of miles over country Victoria and it eventually became the property of the mechanic who did all the work on the cars, and it was from his estate that I bought it.”
“Vintage cars in Australia would have had several bodies fitted over time,” Rex commented. “My car isn’t any different. When I first saw it I was absolutely horrified! It was fitted with a Hudson car body that looked as if was straight out of an Elliot Ness movie. It had originally been a Park Ward, all weather bodied car, which I quickly found was not a good thing to reconstruct due to the complexities of its construction. To have a body that can be a sedan and a tourer might sound like a good idea, but it is not really practical to have made in this day and age. We wanted to go touring so I decided on a tourer body.”
Restore
“The car was in Melbourne, and so was the restorer,” Rex added. “He gave me a quote to restore it with a tourer body and it seemed to be within my budget. In the end, you will be pleased to know it only cost four times more than the original amount! Plus it took close on to four years before I brought it home. I ran it for about 200-miles before the engine seized due to the glass beads used to clean the sump not being thoroughly cleaned out of the system. They paid for it after a legal argument, but a lot of what I received went to the lawyer. In the end, it was an absolute bloody disaster. At least it gave me the opportunity to come to grips with how a Ghost really works, along with a lot of things that really weren’t done to my satisfaction that I did again.
“It’s probably good that it took four years,” Rex admitted. “I learnt a lot about the cars, along with getting in touch with the Silver Ghost Association in the U.S. who were very helpful. The Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts’ Club in England has a fabulous archive from when the company went bankrupt. Rolls-Royce was about to dump the old records when some of the older club members got wind of it and rescued four semi-trailers of documents that dated right back to the beginning. The result is that owners know more about their cars, and I know exactly what came with my car when it was new. One of the components it has fitted is a tachometer, which is very rare for Ghosts. Quite a few owners have questioned it being fitted to my car, but on checking the records it is listed as being fitted from new.”
To Do
So, after four years (and a bit) Rex had his 1924 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost ready for use. On his property there is space for around 13 cars and as happens, lots of his friends commented that he would be buying cars to fill the spaces.
“So many people said that to me,” Rex said. “I decided that I didn’t want to do it because I just couldn’t find the time to drive that many and to me, I can’t see the reason. I mostly drive the Ghost, and I also have a very nice Rolls-Royce 25/30 that I just put the engine back into, but it’s difficult to find the time to drive both. Even though I am now retired I certainly don’t go out every day—and then there is the Morgan. That’s more than enough with everyday life and cars to deal with.
“I’m not a show car person, although it has won a few prizes, but it’s been back on the road since 1996 which is a long time. Since then it’s done over 100,000 miles in Australia and all over the world, and has been in and out of so many shipping containers that it almost knows how to do it by itself.
“We like touring and that’s what the car has been built for. It needs all sorts of places for nuts and bolts, oils and greases, jacks, spanners plus all the spares that you might need. You need a place for all this sort of stuff and right at the beginning I discovered that UK coachbuilder Barker had made some lovely touring bodies fitted with very interesting running boards that contained complete tool chests. So, when in the U.S., I spent some time in the middle of the desert next to a Barker tourer measuring its running boards and the built-in toolboxes. I made up a set on my return and fitted them to the car so that I can carry a complete oil change along with a catch tank.
“It’s not a racing car! It’s a touring car!” Rex noted. “We very seldom put the top up because if you do you can’t see very much around you. There is something delightful about touring around country roads with the whole world surrounding you. It sits very happily between 80 to 100 kph (50 mph to 63 mph) as anything over that we are talking about a car with cartwheel suspension. My wife prefers about 85 kph, but on the freeways I generally find it’s happiest just a little bit slower than the trucks that pass you by. The car has a modern overdrive, as most Rolls-Royce cars of the period were designed to be fitted with heavy bodies and really be town cars while not doing more than 30 mph.”
Touring
I was sure that Rex Vincent’s Silver Ghost is not regularly used for a run to the shops for a bottle of milk, so in response to the types of use he responded:
“It’s been to South Africa twice, and we have gone through the game parks with the hood down, which really upsets the rangers! Actually, I am sure that a lion would be just as happy to jump through the roof as to jump over the side. It’s also been to Scotland twice and on the Austrian Alpine, to France and all over Europe. It’s travelled over both islands of New Zealand a couple of times and all over Australia. However, it’s never been to America.”
“As far as servicing goes, Ghosts are oiled about every 350 miles, which means that I take my grease gun filled with semi-fluid oil and attend to about 35 nipples throughout the car. All up it takes me about 45 minutes to do the job, so it’s not too onerous. Ghosts have an interesting oil system with a valve on the bottom of the sump with an internal standpipe that sets the level. You open the cock, and if oil runs out then that’s fine, but if it doesn’t then there is a five-liter tank on the side of the car that has a Schrader valve at the top that accepts a tire pump for pressurizing. A valve is then opened at the bottom that allows the oil to flow to the engine. Once oil flows out of the sump valve, it’s full. The mechanicals of the car, except for lightweight alloy pistons and overdrive, are 100 percent original.”
Two weeks after I got together with Rex Vincent he, along with 35 other Silver Ghosts, set off for the Australian island state of Tasmania for two weeks of touring with fellow Ghost owners from all over the world.
It’s True!
It’s a story that I have heard in the past! The engine of a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost engine does idle at 200 rpm.
Sitting in the passenger seat beside Rex Vincent I had the chance to watch the tachometer closely, and that’s what it was indicating. Not entirely quiet, but pretty close. I can confirm what I had read in that Henry Royce was certainly a very clever bloke and soon after buying his French-built two-cylinder Decauville became quickly disenchanted at how rough it ran, which led to his decision to make his own car. The first thing that impressed me about Rex’s Silver Ghost was how amazingly smooth it was.
Setting off, Rex quickly showed what a master of his car he was. Fair enough as he has travelled over 100,000 miles behind the wheel, but clearly even after such a long distance he looked to be still enjoying himself.
With its 7-liter engine hard pressed to reach 2,500 rpm I certainly wasn’t pinned back into the seat, but I felt as if the car proceeded with sufficient haste that any distance could be covered quickly and enjoyably.
After a few laps of Rex’s favorite test circuit I jumped behind the steering wheel, excited about flying solo. Excited for sure, and as expected it is truly a wonderful car to drive. The gear change, while non-synchro was quickly learnt, and I found myself enjoying changing through the right-handed four-speed box. Not that an overabundance of gear changing was necessary, since while a heavy car, the torque of the engine coupled with the low gearing made it feel as if it was capable of starting from rest in fourth gear.
The mechanical brakes, which are servo assisted from the gearbox, proved to be exceptional, and unlike other cars of the period I found that there wasn’t a need to plan long ahead for when I needed to stop. Yes, the steering was heavy, but then again I had not long beforehand been driving a modern car with its power steering. However, once underway the steering proved to be light and surprisingly direct.
At 80 kph, or 50 mph, Rex was correct; the car was feeling as if it could run at such speed forever. It had reached its sweet spot and was such a delight to drive. No wonder Ghost owners relish touring with fellow owners. The 1924 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost of Rex Vincent is a wonderful car and many thanks to him for allowing me to get behind the steering wheel and enjoy it so much. It certainly is a car of stature.
