Rolls Royce Phantom

Rolls Royce Phantom

The Psychedelic Rolls-Royce Phantom V

By Brenda Williams

It is rumored that back in 1967 an elderly lady in London was observed beating on a Rolls-Royce with her umbrella while shouting, "You swine, you swine, how dare you do this to a Rolls-Royce?" Although one might assume she would have been arrested and the owner would have pressed charges, this never happened. The owner only laughed.

The owner in question was John Lennon, of Beatle fame. Lennon purchased a Phantom V that had been manufactured by the Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited, in Crewe, Cheshire, England. The chassis was mounted with a limousine body manufactured by Mulltner Park Ward. It was finished in Valentines Black. The license plate number was FBJ111C. The car was 19 feet long and weighed three tons.

Lennon immediately began to make alterations to the vehicle. First he installed a radio-telephone, a stereo system, a Sony television set and a refrigerator. Then he had the back seat modified so it could be converted to a bed. In 1966, when John had to go to Spain to film "How I Won the War," he had both his car and chauffeur sent over. At that time the car, including all the metal trim, had been repainted a matte black.

However, John became bored with the black and in 1967 visited J.P. Fallon Ltd. a coachworks company housed in Chertsey, Surrey, England. Here he discussed idea of repainting the car psychedelic. Fallon agreed to this and hired a Dutch team of Gypsy artists, known as The Fool, to do the job. They painted the car a bright yellow overall and then designed and painted a pattern of scroll and flowers in green, blue, orange and red over the yellow background. John paid 2,000 British pounds for the work.

The Beatles then used the Phantom V from 1966 to 1969. In 1970, John and Yoko Ono shipped the car to the United States however they seldom used it in the United States. Various rock stars such as the Rolling Stones, the Moody Blues and Bob Dylan borrowed it. Finally it was placed in storage in New York City. But when John and Yoko got into trouble with the US Internal Revenue in 1977, they donated the car to the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, in New York City, and received a $225,000 tax credit.

The Museum put it on public display for about four months but had to return it to storage, as they could not afford the insurance coverage for public viewing.

Finally, in 1985 Cooper-Hewitt sold the car through an auction for $2,299,000 to Mr. Jim Pattison's Ripley International Inc., for exhibition at Ripley's "Believe It Or Not" museum.

In 1986, Mr. Pattison, who was chairman of the Expo '86 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, arranged to have the car displayed at Expo.

In 1987, it was presented as a gift to Her Majesty in Right of the Province of British Columbia and placed on exhibit at the Transportation Museum of British Columbia at Cloverdale.

It was then sent to the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, British Columbia for occasional display.

On March 9, 1996 it was moved to The National Museum of Science and Technology in Ottawa. Here it was displayed with a sculpture of John as a passenger, done by Joanne Sullivan.

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