The chequered journey of Rolls-Royce Phantom II 1935 of Maharaja Vijaysinhji of Rajpipla

A Rolls-Royce that Maharaja Vijaysinhji of Rajpipla retained only for a short while was a Phantom II 1935, chassis no. 171 TA, Windovers saloon with division coachwork design no. 6277.

This car soon passed to Lady Scarsdale in November of that year, and then began a chequered record. The car was known to be with a Mr. Dovey in Uitenhage, South Africa, who brought it there from Nchanga (Chingola), Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. It was purchased by Michael Morelli in April 1975 in terrible condition. He decided to junk the body and obtain, or build, an open tourer replica with a side-mounted spare wheel, but then thankfully retained the saloon.

The present owner is Charles Goodman, auto restorer in South Africa, who bought the car in the year 2000. I am in touch with him. He likes the cream and maroon car very much and plans to restore it to mint condition soon.

Rolls-Royce Phantom II 1934 of Maharaja Vijaysinhji of Rajpipla now in the Mewar royal cars collection

A Rajpipla Rolls-Royce that is still very much in evidence in India is the Phantom II 1934, chassis no. 181 RY, engine no. TT 65, Windovers sedanca de ville design no. 6168. It is mentioned in the book "The History of Windovers" (though the caption says chassis no. 181R4).

The 6^th Earl of Portarlington, Lionel Arthur Henry Seymour Dawson-Damer (1883-1959) was a director of Windovers and originally used it as a demonstration car. Maharaja Vijaysinhji shipped this car to India. It was driven mainly between Rajpipla, Bombay, Poona and surrounding areas for two decades.

Thereafter it went to Kolhapur, and was with M. Apte in Bombay for some time.  It is now in the Mewar royal cars collection at Udaipur and was featured in the 13^th James Bond movie ‘Octopussy’ in 1982. In the same year it featured in episode 4 of the television series ‘The Jewel in the Crown’ which was also largely filmed in Udaipur, showing the car registered ‘Mirat 1’.

I had the great pleasure of looking closely in early 2014 at this wonderful car, formerly owned by my grandfather. Mechanical restoration has been carried out in recent years. The interiors are to be refurbished soon to a standard befitting a Rolls-Royce. The exterior is in prime condition, still carrying the original coat of paint.