Is this the Rolls Royce of barn finds? The term so quickly tossed out there to describe the pinnacle of some event, situation, or thing, might not quite describe this 1927 Rolls Royce. Some quick Google searching has me guessing it might be a Doctors Coupe. Currently, the car is located in Dallas, Texas and is at a bid price of $3,639 with a reserve not yet met. More details about the car will be coming here on eBay.
Until they list more, it is hard to deduce what the car is and what engine might be in it based on the very few photos that are available. There are a few things though that one can deduct from the photos. This car was used as a marketing or promotional vehicle for a restaurant in Dallas. Some online searching came up with a postcard of the restaurant and some stories that sound like something out of a movie.
Not just does the mystery of this car and it’s yet to be revealed story, but the car itself looks like something from a movie. While it is not exactly what Jay Gatsby would drive, it is a yellow Rolls Royce, fitting to the vehicle described that he drove. The wood making up the rear reminds me of the childhood friend Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. This car certainly has a lot going on in terms of visual correlation.
The few photos that are posted certainly provide endless thoughts, speculations, assumptions, and opinions. For all of those things, it makes one think that more information is eventually posted about the car, will it still hold the intrigue about it? Will it still be the Rolls Royce of buying a car that is filled with intrigue? I am sure it can. Either way, it would be awesome to have this parked in my garage.
With the chassis number it may be possible to find the entire history, of what appears to me to be a rolling collection of mechanical parts.
Pretty cool story behind it. A picture of the iconic grill, if there, is in order. Here’s the place the car once advertised.
Great work Fred. Just look at those iconic pieces of iron waiting out front.
That Texas Family has been strong in the community well….did the Jeep guy get it as a trade in ?
The body on this particular Rolls Royce appears to have been ‘converted’ into a boat-tail sometime in its life, and I’m guessing that it was an amateur job, judging by the panel fit, etc.
Assuming that there’s an engine and trans sitting between the frame rails, this could be a great project for someone – choose your own body style to replicate and have fun.
BTW, Briggs Cunningham had an early Rolls Royce in his collection and the museum’s curator, John Burgess, had this great party trick where he’d start the car using just the Spark Advance-Retard Lever.
If you were over 90 years old and subject to that many years of temperature and moisture fluctuations, I’m sure your panels wouldn’t fit that well either. Not a very fair assessment from the photos.
I am 80 and my alignment of all my panels are definitely off. :-)
Looks like someone had fun in woodworking class.
A friend of mine had a 1926 Rolls Royce fitted with a Weyman wood and fabric body above the waistline. Before he bought it I was offered it for £1300 in excellent condition but turned it down owing to having too many projects lying around. My friend then purchased it but while he was trailering it to a show a wheel came off the trailer which overturned, pushing the top half of the body about 30 degrees out of plumb, and leaving the rest of the body feeling a bit sorry for itself. Once he got it back home he promptly took out a chain saw and hacked the damaged top off the body. He then parked it in a garage, whose roof collapsed soon after, so he gave up on it. Fast forward 35 years and the son sold it last year for +-£20,000 to a UK collector.
Another Pic.
I believe it’s a Rolls-Royce 20hp. They were the only ones hat had horizontal shutters in the grill. This could be a really fun car to restore and drive.
You say could be fun to drive?? Have you ever driven one? Incredibly SLOW, heavy steering, drives like the ’49 Chevy 1 1/2 dump truck recently featured here – I know. I’ve driven both. This is not a car you would restore, rather it would end up being “re-created.”
Yes, I have had both a 20 and a 25/30. They are a lot of fun to drive, maybe not coast to coast, but for general use, yes.
The last RR that I worked on was a 29 One Off Boat tail Speedster. I had loads of fun making I run nd the driving it. It was hue and attracted a lot of attention.
Pre-1930, it was not unusual for high end cars to have custom bodies, including wood hull boatlike creations, and even some with wicker covered bodies. With a chassis number, one should be able to learn exactly how this car was originally built, if that matters to the owner.
Driving early cars is incomparable to the “fun” one has with later vehicles. One of my employees talked some big talk for months about dropping some big mill in my Model TT flatbed like he had in his 90’s era Mustang, a car I call a “man magnet”. When I blew a head gasket in my regular work truck one day, we loaded up our ladders and tools in the TT and headed out to the job. He got a firsthand look at what a “chick magnet” looks like that day, when several attractive women were asking to get in it, have their pictures taken in it, etc.. He said he never got that kind of reaction to his 500-horse Mustang, and all suggestions of making the old nag into a rallye racer or dragstrip demon stopped. You don’t own and enjoy early cars for the same reasons you do with more modern iron. Like comparing trees to electricity.
Definately one for the adventurous and NOT faint hearted. It will be a labour of love with a BIG budget if my personal experience is anything to go on.
There another 1927 Rolls-Royce on eBay that has a similar vertical windshield that has definitely had an easier life then our poor fellow here. Still a wonderful find! I’m also reminded of Miss Agnes, Travis McGee’s Rolls-Royce pickup from the John D. MacDonald stories. Might be the perfect opportunity to create it?
Personally, I would not give it an over-polished restoration. Too many of those RR’s already around …… boring. Make it a clean, reliable “survivor”, even if “survivor” is not really what it is. Nicely kept early cars that retain that just-pushed-out-of-a-shed look are far more interesting to me and the general public than another over-polished snootmobile. If promoting interest in old cars is part of one’s old car interest, drive this thing and give lots of rides to all those who WILL be interested.
SOLD for $12K.