1972 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud LWB model with a brass plaque on the dash reading “This Motor Car Especially Built for Richard Burton – Rolls Royce Ltd, London, England.” See attached photos. We purchased it in 1987 from Concannon Motors, which dealt in antique and celebrity autos, with the understanding that the previous owner was the actor Richard Burton. Befitting a movie star, he had the hood ornament’s flying lady “The Spirit of Ecstasy,” plated in what is apparently gold, since it doesn’t seem to tarnish. We’ve only driven this auto car about 6,000 miles in the 34 years we’ve owned it, keeping it mostly under a cover in our garage. We prefer newer Maseratis and Cadillacs, so we usually detach the battery when leaving it for such lengths of time. Apparently Richard Burton was not in the country enough to put many miles on it either, since at this writing it has only 44,130 miles showing on the speedometer.
If desired, any offer on the car can be made with the contingency that it belonged to the actor and that these are roughly the actual and original miles. Such inspections would need to be left up to the buyer, to be satisfied within a certain time period. I personally don’t know how to check these h things, mainly since, as I understand it, Mr. Burton had his agent do the buying and selling of such items Anticipating this sale, in recent years we gave a blank check to a group of mechanics, primarily Ronny’s Garage in Santa Ana, which specializes in antique Rolls Royces, to go over the car to find anything that might need fixing or adjusting, and fix it or adjust it. Accordingly, over the last 1600 miles we’ve alternated between taking it on runs and having the mechanics do their adjustments. At a cost of approximately $25,000, th seem to have run out of adjustments to make to bring it up to speed, which bills we have kept for anyone’s review.
Because of all that work, it rides pretty good now. A number of years ago we replaced the original radio, which included what I believe is an 8-track player, with a newer radio, but the original systems are in a box in the trunk, along with the original carpeted foot rests, etc., in case anyone wants to have it in original production-line form Not sure whether the “Speed Control” works, though, since we’ve never tried it. We just enjoy occasionally driving around Newport Beach and sometimes going to classy functions with this great looking machine, sporting its large intimidating grill and all.
