The Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III represented a watershed moment for its manufacturer. It was still a traditionally crafted luxury automobile with wood-framed bodywork featuring a library’s worth of burled walnut; the engine was reassuringly silent; and the interior was surpassingly comfortable. The engine, improved over the previous Silver Cloud II, was the epitome of the Rolls-Royce ideal of gradual refinement of a design. Yet this model also represented the company’s first nods towards contemporary styling, with quad headlamps, a lowered hood and radiator shell, smaller bumpers, and separate front seats.

No offering better exemplified the Silver Cloud III’s straddling of two worlds than the Drophead Coupé Adaptation, crafted by Rolls-Royce’s coachbuilding shop, H.J. Mulliner. A continuation of the similar style introduced extremely late in Silver Cloud I production and used exclusively on the Silver Cloud II, it was known as an “Adaptation” because it was based on factory Standard Steel Saloon body panels and inner structure. So thoroughly massaged and reworked were the factory components, however, that the end result was truly a piece of coachbuilt craftsmanship as fine as any fully custom body.

Not long into the Silver Cloud III’s production run, modernity took firm hold at Rolls-Royce with the debut of a new Drophead Coupé of brand-new, audacious design. Thus, the Silver Cloud III Drophead Coupé Adaptation enjoyed a very limited run and was scarce even when new, with just 37 examples produced—only 12 were right-hand drive.

The car offered here, chassis no. SEV11, was delivered in August 1963 by prominent London dealer HR Owen to Charles Spreckley & Company Ltd, a prominent London contracting and shopfitting firm, presumably for the use of its principal. It subsequently moved across the Atlantic with its 1985 acquisition by Donald T Knutson of Minneapolis, Minnesota. A later restoration was undertaken by the noted P&A Wood, to their typical excellent level of quality and detail, with the colourway of Caribbean Blue over Parchment hides with matching hood; an invoice on file notes that at the time nearly ₤195,000 was spent. Subsequently the car was acquired, through the auspices of P&A Wood, by the well-known Belgian collector Bob Lalement, and has since remained in Belgium, most recently as part of a select but well-chosen collection of coachbuilt Bentleys from which it is now offered.

Simply, this is a beautiful example of perhaps the most sought-after coachwork on the Silver Cloud III, benefitting from excellent long-term care within fine collections.