In 1919, Rolls-Royce acquired a factory in Springfield, Massachusetts, and began to manufacture the Silver Ghost on these shores. In addition to Brewster, American Rolls’ were bodied by many other prestige coachbuilders, a number of them under the hallmark of Rolls-Royce Custom Coach Work. Included in this bevy of eastern craftsmanship were such companies as Biddle & Smart, Willoughby, Merrimac, and Holbrook. In order to have cars ready for customers who wished to buy “off the showroom floor,” a range of standard designs was prepared, to be built by the aforementioned firms.

This Tilbury sedan, one of 138 produced for the American Silver Ghost chassis, was used for two years as a demonstrator at the Rolls-Royce dealership in Portland, Oregon, before delivery on 23 April 1928, to Adolph W. Gilbert of San Marino, California. Mr. Gilbert was actually well known to Springfield management, as he was president of another local concern, the Chapman Valve Manufacturing Company, a producer of fire hydrants.

Rolls-Royce Foundation documents chronicle subsequent owners of the Tilbury as Edward Kachelhoffer of St. Louis, in 1955; B.E. Stewart of Gahanna, Ohio, in 1971; Louis Schultz of Sandusky, Ohio, in 1983; and Roger Loecy, son of well-known Silver Ghost collector Joe Loecy, from 1989 until 2004. It was then fully restored by a new owner in New England in this striking color scheme, taken from Rolls-Royce catalogue drawings, and performed to a truly beautiful standard. In every detail the car is beautifully finished, to a level rarely seen on an enclosed sedan of this vintage.

An ideal automobile for Rolls-Royce Owners’ Club and Silver Ghost Association rallies, or for CCCA CARavans, this is one of the finest Tilburys that survive.