Advertising 1953 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith LWB Touring Limousine by H.J.Mulliner [BLW48]Class: Cars, Limousine — Model origin: 
![1953 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith LWB Touring Limousine by H.J.Mulliner [BLW48]](/i001526567.jpg)
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◊ 2021-06-12 19:07 |
![[Image: 31-11rr1953showb.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/10314/31-11rr1953showb.jpg) Earls Court motor show, 1953. |
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◊ 2021-06-12 19:40 |
Silver Wraith?? |
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◊ 2021-06-12 21:30 |
Rolls-Royce Stand 170 “The Best Car in the World” will be shown in Silver Wraith form with Hooper enclosed limousine, H. J. Mulliner touring limousine and Park Ward touring saloon coachwork. There will also be shown a Silver Dawn saloon entirely by the manufacturers. The Silver Wraith now has a longer chassis to accommodate more commodious bodies. All models on the stand have the automatic transmission imported from the United States, fitted with Rolls-Royce mechanism enabling a measure of manual control to be exerted by the driver, who, however, is normally absolved from the responsibility of using clutch or gear lever. |
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◊ 2021-06-13 00:04 |
I suspect that this may be the H J Mulliner Touring Limousine to design #7358. The quote shown above was from the 1953 Show edition of Motor Sport. It has taken a great deal of time to research this, and even now it is not totally certain and I have failed to unearth the chassis number of the car carrying this body. |
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◊ 2021-06-13 00:36 |
Based on the license plate it is a 1954 model. Yes?? No?? |
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◊ 2021-06-13 09:02 |
That means nothing. This was the October 1953 Earls Court Motor Show, no other reason. If taken literally, RR 1954 is a plate that would have been issued by the County Council of Nottinghamshire in about 1928. (Records are incomplete.) Royce’s did not do “model years”. Their policy was one of continuous improvement, they incorporated changes into their chassis immediately they were ready for production. An instance of this is the adoption of automatic transmissions, which were progressively introduced as and when they were ready, necessary modification to the 4 speed GM Hydramatic transmission being to fit the mechanical brake servo at the output shaft end of the device. These transmissions were built by Rolls-Royce under license from GM. I have a list of modifications incorporated on the Bentley chassis stretching over several pages and several years. Since the chassis and the coachbuilt bodies were mainly hand built there was no need to “stop the line” in order to make a change, new parts and drawings could be issued as and when they became available. The 4257cc engine was fitted to short chassis MkVI Bentleys and R-R Silver Dawns from the beginning of each model, the 4,566cc engine was fitted to chassis B2MD (MkVI) on 22nd May 1951, but the first R-type chassis, with the longer side members did not happen until B10RT on 16 June 1952. The all welded chassis frame was introduced on chassis # B349TO (R-type) in June 1953, the R-type was discontinued in May 1955. As a further example of the non-mass production basis of R-R and Bentley models, my own car is one of very few right hand drive Bentley R-types with a manual gearbox having a centre change, most having the gear lever to the right of the driver’s seat. It was built that way to special request of the first owner. Had it been a few chassis #s earlier, it would not have had the all welded chassis, but there was no trumpeting about model changes. Some, (a very few) S-types were fitted with manual gearboxes at customer request, again, no such thing as a standard for each year. Since my car is a Bentley, most of my data is for those cars, but similar change incorporation would undoubtedly have been made on the Rolls-Royce equivalent chassis. There is then the question of coachwork. The coachbuilder’s bodies were mainly hand built, and could be ordered by the customer to be utterly anachronistic, thirties designs on forties cars and so on. When you were paying, at the least, ten times the price of a family car, and sometimes many multiples more, you could have what you wanted. Some of the coachbuilt body shapes lasted for years, although minor items like the small air intakes below the headlights were sometimes changed in accordance with those being used by the company on the Standard Steel bodies. The ones on the subject car are of a design first used in 1946. Those bodies were the closest that the Company got to standardisation, due to the cost of changing press tooling. So, change your concept of models and years for the products of R-R and B. It doesn’t work. As James Cagney said to a car park jockey in one of his films, (Public Enemy) “Hey, stoop, that's got gears. It ain't no Ford.” -- Last edit: 2021-06-13 13:04:03 |
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◊ 2021-06-13 17:09 |
Clip sourced from 1953 Pathe report after 08 seconds. |
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◊ 2021-06-13 17:11 |
Yes, I had that clip, no detail of the car is given, nor is there any better view, but I have based my suggestion on the shape of the windscreen as you can’t see much else. -- Last edit: 2021-06-13 17:59:35 |
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◊ 2021-08-10 13:39 |
1953 Silver Wraith LWB Touring Limousine by H.J.Mulliner #BLW48, shown on the RR stand, while a LHD version was shown on the coachbuilder's stand. Supplied to V.Tate of Tate & Lyle after the show. |
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