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1956 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith LWB 7-seater Limousine by Hooper

1956 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith LWB in Glasgow 1980, Documentary, 1971

Class: Cars, Limousine — Model origin:

1956 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith LWB 7-seater Limousine by Hooper

00:22:34 Minor action vehicle or used in only a short scene

Comments about this vehicle

Author	Message
dsl ◊ 2014-12-11 05:14	26 June 1970 - Queen Mum officially opens M8 Kingston Bridge in Glasgow Provost's 56 Silver Wraith LWB Hooper limo with G0 plate, accompanied by security in a Corsair. Halfway across bridge, they stop momentarily to show her the view but RR overheats, so they have to wait for several minutes until it decides it's ready to move again. Pissed off with this latest in a series of mechanical tantrums, Glasgow Corporation decide to replace it in Sept 70 with this Phantom VI, which turned out to be just as unreliable when delivered 2 years later. The Provost now uses this 2009 Volkswagen Phaeton 4motion 3.0 Tdi LWB Silver Wraith references here and here. It cost £8,413 in 1956 and had done 137,000 miles by Sept 70. Spirit of Ecstacy replaced by a flag mast. Can't find any other direct references apart from these newspaper accounts, but it must be a known car??
johnfromstaffs ◊ 2014-12-11 09:16	Can't help with the P VI, but the older six cylinder Bentleys and Royces such as the Silver Wraith suffered from overheating caused by blockage of the water passages, particularly at the gearbox end of the engines so affecting cylinders 5 and 6. My own car had a large build up of crud in this area, which had contributed to broken piston rings due to excess cylinder wall temperatures, no. 6 had no top ring at all when stripped. The radiators are also only just up to the job and the instructions in the service manual include detail about regular cleaning out of the system, finishing with a solution of Stergene! Link to "www.advertisingarchives.co.uk" (Image for Gamer) I don't know about the water in Glasgow, but cars run in hard water areas were susceptible for obvious reasons, maybe the Provost's garage didn't follow the service manual to the letter either. There is much correspondence on the Bentley Drivers Club blog about overheating of these engines, especially when run slowly in traffic, or when the engines have been tuned for greater output. Presumably the Provost's car had the 4.9 litre engine, which was at the limit of the development of the straight six which could be traced back to the introduction of the Rolls-Royce 20 HP model in the early 1920s. -- Last edit: 2014-12-11 14:05:43
dsl ◊ 2014-12-11 14:38	Glasgow's water is beautifully soft thanks to the Loch Katrine reservoir supply. One of the press articles above says this is a 4.5 litre engine - not the 4.9 introduced Oct 55. I'd be surprised if RR did not give the Provost's cars full VIP red carpet servicing and maintenance as RR presence in Glasgow through Hillingdon aircraft factory was significant. But all speculation now .....
johnfromstaffs ◊ 2014-12-11 17:36	The 4.2, 4.5 and 4.9 litre engines are variants of the same design which was developed in Derby during WW2 to meet the need for a more powerful engine to combat increasing weight of the cars. All three engines suffer from the same problem if neglected, Rolls-Royce were fully aware of the troubles and tried quite a few things to combat them, even to the extent of changing the earthing arrangements of the dynamo to reduce silt that they thought was produced by some form of electrolytic action. It would surprise me if there was any connexion with the Hillingdon factory, R-R at Crewe kept itself away from the air side, trading as Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, although I would have to look up dates to be certain when all traces of car design had left Derby. Certainly production of all post war cars was from Crewe, later I worked with R-R Specialist Engines at Crewe and they were certainly a seperate outfit, although that was in the 80s and 90s.

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