Montgomery’s Phantom

‘Nobody ever won a war at 30mph’ So said General Eisenhower of a Rolls-Royce Phantom that became the post-war daily drive of Field Marshall Montgomery. This is its extraordinary story Words David Burgess-Wise Photography Tim Andrew

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here’s a wartime story concerning this remarkable Rolls-Royce Phantom III ‘This Phantom III that bears repeating. Its long-term chauffeur Percy Parker was flagged down had a body like no byT a policeman in London’s East End and accused of exceeding the speed limit. The constable was reaching for other. Tests showed his notebook when the rear window was wound down and a Kansan voice sharply informed the policeman: ‘Nobody that wind resistance ever won a war at 30mph.’ It was Five-Star General Dwight D Eisenhower, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces was reduced by 15%’ in Europe, for once not being driven by the delicious Kay Summersby. Suitably chastised, the constable waved the wife, Lois, herself a pilot. As well as his accomplishments in Phantom on its way. Eisenhower was not to be this Rolls- the air, he was greatly interested in the sea and sailing. He Royce’s only famous wartime associate. held a yacht master’s certificate and sailed his own yacht, The Mulliner-bodied Phantom III, chassis 3AX79, had Sylvia, four times across the Atlantic. Butler gave the been ordered from John Croall & Sons of Edinburgh in late impression of having great reserves of nervous energy, 1936 by Alan Samuel Butler, chairman of De Havilland which he sometimes used with a single-minded ruthlessness Aircraft; possibly he had attended the Scottish Motor Show that led to overwork and illness. But he also had a keen in Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall, where Croall had shown a 25/30 sense of humour and was a delightful companion.’ and a Phantom III, bodied by Mulliner, a company in which The Phantom III that Butler commissioned from Croall it had held a controlling interest since 1909. had a limousine body like no other. Using his knowledge of Butler was a Rolls-Royce aficionado, having owned a aerodynamics, Butler had concluded that a forward-raked, 20hp, three New Phantoms, two Phantom IIs and 3½-litre vee-shaped windscreen conferred a number of advantages. and 4¼-litre Derby Bentleys. This Old Etonian’s family He claimed that tests in the De Havilland wind tunnel fortune came from tar distillation, along with coal and coke showed that wind resistance was reduced by up to 15%, works in Bristol and Gloucester which, among other things, while the reverse angle also helped to reduce dazzle at night supplied the local town gas. During the Great War he had and removed water from the windscreen in bad weather. graduated from Sandhurst and joined the Coldstream Curiously, no De Havilland aircraft ever had a reverse- Guards, but the Armistice was signed before he could be rake windscreen, though it appeared on a number of fast drafted to France. In 1919 he was stationed on Wimbledon single-engine monoplanes built by the rival Miles company, Common, not far from Colonel GLP Henderson’s flying Falcon, Whitney Straight and Nighthawk among them. It’s school at Hounslow, where he learned to fly an Avro 504 possible that Butler had been taken by this feature when, powered by a Gnome Monosoupape rotary engine. in September 1935, De Havilland’s Hatfield aerodrome In 1920, Butler bought a Bristol Type 29 two-seater hosted the start and finish of the King’s Cup air race, in biplane, a derivative of the wartime Bristol Fighter, and which the winning Miles Falcon Six and several other Miles passed the test for his pilot’s licence at the Bristol Flying planes had reverse-rake ’screens. Blossom Miles herself had School the year after. He became the first British private claimed ‘a 5mph increase over standard speed’. owner to tour Britain and the Continent by air, and A road trip in the car proves the merit of its unorthodox commissioned a fast touring aircraft to replace the Bristol appearance. At the wheel is Paul Wood of Rolls-Royce from the De Havilland Aircraft Company. Finished in 1922 Heritage specialist P&A Wood, which has prepared the at a cost of £3500, Butler’s new DH37 was named Sylvia Phantom for Rolls-Royce’s ‘The Great Eight Phantoms’ after his sister, and so successfully met his requirements exhibition to launch the new model, and also for Pebble that he invested £10,000 in De Havilland, a gesture that Beach. ‘The advantages are the clear visibility and lack of enabled the company to buy the Stag Lane aerodrome, glare. There’s a wonderful view over the front of the car – which became its base until it moved to Hatfield in 1934. you can see the edges and know exactly where you are Butler became chairman of De Havilland in 1924, and on the road. It’s certainly better than most Phantoms.’ became close friends with Geoffrey de Havilland, who Off test at Derby on 16 November 1936, the Phantom III recalled: ‘Unlike many rich men, Alan Butler tried to spend chassis (with low ‘F’ rake steering column position) was and invest his money wisely and was usually successful. He delivered to Mulliner four days later from Rolls-Royce’s flew whenever possible in British as well as in European London depot at Lillie Hall, Fulham. The build sheet had competitions, in 1928 obtained the world speed record for been made out on 29 October: ‘Body: 4 door 4 light saloon light two-seater machines, and flew to the Cape with his with special VEE front sloped windscreen and swept tail. Fade away ridge along roof.’ From the A-pillar back, Butler’s Rolls-Royce followed Left Field Marshall Montgomery visits Derby with his Phantom for airline fashion, with a tapering tail that housed the spare a meeting with Lord Hives, former head of the Rolls-Royce wheel in the bootlid. There were spats on the rear Aero Engine division and chairman of Rolls-Royce Ltd. wheelarches with chrome flashes like stylised lightning

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bolts. The body, it was claimed, had been designed by relieved him of his post after the fall back on Dunkirk summoned to the War Office and told that he was to be story that the car was allocated to General Montgomery on Above from left Geoffrey de Havilland himself. It added £970 to the chassis in May 1940 and put him in charge of Home Forces. replaced by General Sir Alan Brooke. He left without the eve of D-Day stand up, even though Monty was to take Phantom was commissioned by an aviation enthusiast, hence price of £1480. An aviation touch was the Smiths aneroid It was at this point that the Phantom met the man who meeting Brooke, and left him no information save for a brief the car over after the war ended. The Rolls-Royce that he the Smiths aneroid altimeter in altimeter reading to 7000ft in the fully instrumented was to drive it for the next six years, Sergeant Percy Parker, memo noting that he had arranged for Brooke to take over took to Normandy on D-Day plus 3 in June 1944 was a the dash panel; windscreen is dashboard. The finished car was delivered to Butler on 8 who recalled: ‘Scrambling back from Dunkirk, I was the use of the Phantom III as his staff car. Parker recalled: Wraith, chassis WMB40, its driver Percy Parker’s younger the most distinctive element, February 1937, bearing the London registration DUV 553. instructed by telegram to report to Kneller Hall, to once ‘Sir Alan willingly accepted the Phantom and my services, brother Cedric. It’s unlikely, too, that there’s any substance but the ‘swept tail’ treatment is Butler was a staunch patriot so, in 1940, soon after war again drive General Ironside.’ Parker, the holder of a Rolls- and we remained with him until his retirement in 1946.’ to the tale that the Phantom was the second Allied car to characteristic of ‘airline’ styling. was declared, he offered his Phantom III to the War Office Royce Certificate of Merit as driver and mechanic, had That encompassed Brooke’s promotion to Chief of the enter Berlin after the fall of the Third Reich. on three conditions: that it was not to be sent abroad; been the last man out of France after World War One, Imperial General Staff on Christmas Day 1941, a role he But in Alan Brooke’s tenure it had a list of distinguished that it was to be driven, as it had been in his service, by a escorting the body of the Unknown Warrior, and the first would occupy until his retirement. Parker’s memoirs thus passengers that would be hard to match, including King Rolls-Royce trained driver; that Rolls-Royce was to carry man into France in World War Two. Between the wars he kick into the long grass several of the stories that have George VI, Winston Churchill, Ike of course, and the Prime out scheduled inspections and any necessary repairs. had been chauffeur to Queen Alexandra, who died in 1925, accumulated around such a historic car over the years. One Ministers of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Who And so the Phantom III, given the Army registration still using the 14hp Renault that she had been supplied says that ‘a year or so later it would be used by Field Marshal knows what wartime secrets were discussed in its rear 16 YF 66, would be reserved for the use of the Chief of the with by Stratton & Instone in 1906; he also drove her Viscount Gort, who was Commander in Chief of the UK compartment, with the division window wound up to keep Imperial General Staff – the professional head of the British unmarried daughter Princess Victoria, who died in 1935. Home Forces’; since at the time Lord Gort was Governor of chauffeur Percy from being a nosy Parker? Army – and was allocated to the 6ft 4in General Sir William Ironside’s plan for the defence of Britain met with much the embattled island of Malta, having previously been Churchill could be a difficult passenger, remembered ‘Tiny’ Ironside, who retained its use after Churchill had criticism, and after less than two months in the job he was Governor of Gibraltar, that was hardly likely. Nor does the Percy Parker: driving from London to Chequers on a pitch-

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‘The list of distinguished passengers would be hard to match, including King George VI, Winston Churchill, Eisenhower…’

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‘Its itinerary included such addresses as 10 Downing Street, Chequers, the War Office, NATO Command HQ…’

dark night, he urged impatiently: ‘Can’t you go any faster?’ Not only that, but Rolls-Royce had offered Monty a free Parker thought quickly, changed into a lower gear and overhaul should he eventually acquire it. Inevitably, the revved the engine to give the impression that the car was Civil Service dragged its heels in trying to secure an agreed going faster. Churchill was fooled: ‘Do you want to break valuation, the to-and-fro of correspondence lasting from our bloody necks?’ he growled. November 1957 to September the following year, with On another occasion, Parker was driving General Brooke dealer Jack Barclay reckoning the Phantom III might sell for and the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, back in between £500-£1000 given its link with Monty, while other the moonlight from a meeting at Chequers. Both men were dealers and Rolls-Royce arrived at a valuation (‘personal fast asleep in the back when, near Northolt, ‘there was a association’ not included) of £500. swishing sound as though something was coming up In the meantime, says Clarke: ‘Monty’s good fortune behind’, followed by a tremendous explosion a few yards doubled in May 1958 when a full mechanical refurbishment away that blew the Phantom onto the grass verge. The only was authorised costing £450… that brought the amount response from the back came from the Admiral: ‘Who spent on the car in 2½ years to £1650!’ rocked the boat?’ said his sleepy voice. In the end, when Monty retired in 1958, he bought the One of Brooke’s first outings in the Phantom was for Phantom from the War Office for £300, retaining the lunch at Windsor Castle with the Royal Family, to discuss services of his long-term driver Cedric Parker (Percy’s with the King the details of the defence of Windsor. As they brother), and kept the car in an only-just-big-enough left the castle, Brooke asked Parker whether he had been Marley concrete garage at his home at Isington Mill, near given his lunch. ‘Oh, yes,’ replied Parker, ‘I know my way Alton in Hampshire, alongside a wooden building around the castle well from former visits. What is more, I containing the three caravans that he had used as mobile have come away with a spare chamois and sponge: they headquarters during the campaign in North West Europe. keep the best chamois and sponge you can get anywhere.’ After Cedric Parker died in 1962, Monty found it difficult When Brooke – by then Viscount Alanbrooke – retired to find another chauffeur, so in 1963 he sold the Phantom. in 1946, the Phantom was offered back to Alan Butler, Chauffeurless, Monty drove his Daimler Conquest Century, who said that as the car had by then covered 300,000 miles an ex-works demonstrator that he had bought in 1954 and he had no further use for it, and asked the War Office to kept for 13 years – usually driving slowly down the centre make him a reasonable offer. This was accepted, and the of the road followed by a queue of impatient drivers. Phantom was assigned to Britain’s best-known wartime In July 1963 London dealer Jack Compton placed the general, Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, following small ad in Autocar: ‘1937 PIII, fitted aerodynamic the new Chief of the Imperial General Staff. He kept saloon body by Mulliner, chassis and engine fully modified, the Phantom as his staff car after relinquishing his post in maintained regardless of cost by makers from new, late 1948 and taking on the role of chairman of the Western property of well-known Field Marshal: £2000.’ Union of Commanders-in-Chief (1948-51), the forerunner That was something like three or four times as much as of NATO, of which he was Deputy Supreme Commander other PIIIs were selling for at the time, and the mileage of in Europe until his retirement. some 340,000 was certainly excessive. Thejolie laide During those years, its itinerary included such addresses Phantom was obviously slow to sell, and the advert as 10 Downing Street, Chequers, the War Office in remained in Autocar for weeks, with the car finally being Whitehall, NATO Eastern Command HQ at Northwood, described as ‘the most fabulous PIII on the market today’. and the NATO Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers- The eventual purchaser came from the far side of the Europe at Camp Voluceau in Rocquencourt, near Versailles. Atlantic, a man called George Beaumont, who after a year Rolls-Royce historian Tom Clarke notes: ‘As Monty sold it to Drew Wilson. There followed a succession of neared retirement, he made strenuous efforts to keep the owners, including collector-cum-auctioneer James Leake Phantom III, 3AX79. It was not a wartime car for him, but of Muskogee, Oklahoma, who claimed to have the largest its role while he was CIGS in the early post-war years made him “very attached to the car”, so too his driver of the last 12 Right years. In fact, the Secretary of State at the War Office, John Restoration work has been carried out in the Phantom’s Hare, had agreed at some time prior to Monty’s retirement exquisite interior, though a burn mark on one of the cappings that he could have the car at full market value.’ remains as testament to one of Churchill’s cigars.

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1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom III Engine 7340cc V12, OHV, dual-downdraught Rolls-Royce Zenith carburettor Power 165bhp @ 3000rpm Transmission Four-speed manual (synchromesh on 2,3,4), rear-wheel drive Steering Marles cam and roller Suspension Front: double wishbones, coil springs, hydraulic dampers. Rear: live axle, leaf springs, hydraulic dampers, anti-roll bar Brakes Cable-operated drums, servo-assisted Weight 2642kg Performance Top speed 92mph

private collection of Rolls-Royces in the world. He displayed deteriorated, and whole sections of the body, door and the car for more than 10 years before selling it to Herbert bootlid framework needed to be replaced. The structure of Dorner of Northfield, Illinois. The Phantom returned to the running boards also needed repair and replacement. Europe in 2010, after being bought through Gooding & Co Some of the body panels also needed to be remade, and the by the current owners, Catherine and Henry Robet. car was then carefully repainted to look as it did when The Robets initially placed the Phantom III with P&A delivered to Alan Butler in 1937. Wood for a road test and workshop report, but, as the Happily, the interior leather trim merely needed inspection continued, more and more areas of concern sympathetic restoration, and the wood trim – fascias and revealed themselves. At that point, the decision was taken cappings – was adorned with new silver inlays. During this that all work carried out should be completed to a concours process, Paul Wood noticed a burn mark on one of the standard, and a thorough restoration began, with its goal cappings. ‘We’ll have to bleach that out,’ he told the owner. the retention of as much originality as possible. ‘On no account,’ came the reply. ‘That’s where Winston Much of the work necessary was consistent with the Churchill used to stub out his cigars!’ End car’s high mileage – a corroded exhaust system, sludge in the cooling system, a seized cardan shaft coupling, Thanks to P&A Wood, www.pa-wood.co.uk. The Great Eight a worn-out oil pump needing new gears, complete Phantoms exhibition runs from 27 July to 2 August, 10am to 5pm, rewiring – but the ash body framing was perilously at Bonhams, New Bond Street, London W1S 1SR.

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