Per its build record, chassis number 172LG was originally delivered with engine number 0269 (as fitted today) to Captain H H Liddell-Grainger at The Travellers Club in London. He was also listed with an address at Ayton Castle in Berwickshire. The bodywork was produced by Barker as an especially attractive tourer. With a polished aluminium bonnet and a ‘three-door’ design, with two doors on the kerbside only, here was a very rakish appearance altogether similar to a 4½-Litre Bentley of the period.

The Rolls-Royce ownership records note that care later passed to its first owner’s wife, Lady Muriel Liddell-Grainger, as of 1929. Fascinatingly, according to a copy of the original “buff” logbook that remains in the file, it appears to have remained with the Liddell-Grainger family until 1976, when it passed to noted Welsh Rolls-Royce and Bentley collector and connoisseur T Layton Roberts. An attestation from Mr Roberts states that the car had “covered a genuine 32,000-odd miles since new and is only one owner”. In his ownership, it was restored by Antique Automobiles of Baston.

In August 1978, the car was sold at auction by Sotheby’s for what was a world-record price at the time. Its new home was the Banham International Motor Museum, where it was displayed for nearly four years. Chassis 172LG again returned to the Sotheby’s block in 1982 and soon after was acquired by Jim Boland for his distinguished collection in the mid-1980s. Remarkably, the Silver Ghost has remained part of his stable ever since.

Today, the restoration of the car shows abundant use in the most charming way. The leather interior is finely broken-in like a well-loved jacket and the paint still shows well enough for driving use. Indeed, the car would be a most tempting entrant to any number of Silver Ghost and Rolls-Royce events in the United Kingdom, on the continent, and abroad, with its wonderful history recommending it sincerely to all comers.