40/50 hp, 7,668 cc overhead valve six-cylinder engine, four-speed manual gearbox, solid front axle with semi-elliptic leaf springs and live rear axle with cantilever leaf springs, four-wheel servo-assisted mechanical brakes. Wheelbase: 150"

- Fascinating Australian history

- Desirable open Phantom I with rarely seen coachwork

- Used by Prince Michael of Kent during visit to Sydney

In 1925, Rolls-Royce introduced the “New Phantom,” successor to the long-running Silver Ghost. Although the chassis was an evolution of the Ghost, the engine was new, with overhead valves and larger displacement of 7,668 cc. The New Phantom, later to be designated “Phantom I” after a Phantom II was introduced in 1929, was heavier than the Silver Ghost and performance suffered. To restore agility for the sporting customer, Rolls-Royce designer Ivan Evernden had coachbuilders Barker & Co. work up a light boattail tourer body style, an example of which exceeded 89 mph in the flying half-mile.

Delivered in chassis form to Australia for its first owner, Cyril Steele, chassis 9YC was fitted with a tourer body by the coachbuilders Smith & Waddington, Ltd. Smith & Waddington was incorporated in Camperdown, a suburb of Sydney, in September 1922. The British-born Frank Waddington was a wealthy cinema owner who teamed with Arthur Spurway Smith and Charles Leslie Fairs. Smith and Fairs were accomplished coachbuilders, and the new firm specialised in bodies for imported automobiles. Their work appeared on Wolseley, Hudson, Dort, Essex, Benz, Fiat and Turcat Mery chassis, in addition to Rolls-Royce.

Within a year, propelled principally by Waddington’s son Russell and Smith, Smith & Waddington had expanded to a large new factory. The name Smith & Waddington bespoke quality construction, their bodies, according to a local motoring journal, “win[ning] instantaneous admiration everywhere.” In 1923, they were bodying 85 percent of the Rolls chassis delivered to Australia, and many cars with their bodies were being exported to India and other southeast Asian countries. In 1924 Smith & Waddington added motor bus bodies to their activities and fared well in them for several years. However, competition from volume body companies like Holdens and the economic downturn at the end of the decade forced Smith & Waddington into liquidation in July 1930. Some fresh capital from Frank Waddington, however, allowed Russell to recommence operations as Waddington Body Company, Ltd. in 1931.

By the late 1930s, 9YC had found a new home and was sent to Kellow & Falkner to be modified with different front wings and a larger boot fitter. In 1953 the car passed to a Mrs. Blanche Brown who became famous in Australia for her success in the Ampol Trials of the 1950s behind the wheel of a Phantom I. These trials were long-distance endurance races through wild outback roads in semi-desert country, tropical forests and roads covered in snow. The trials ran for three years in succession over a long-distance course of about 10,000 to 12,000 kms. An extraordinarily determined competitor, Mrs. Brown never failed to finish.

The car then eventually passed to Mr. Allan Passmore, who drove the car over a long period of time, even throughout medical school, enjoying it with its orange Kellow & Falkner body. Thereafter, one John G. Giles of Sydney owned the car before it was acquired by Neil Collins, also of Sydney, in the 1970s. From correspondence we know that the car was restored extensively during the 1980s, at which time the car was reverted to the original Smith & Waddington specification.

9YC was once again restored in 1994 and was subsequently used by Prince Michael of Kent for his Royal visit to Sydney in 1995, as corroborated by photos and a letter on file from “The Royal Life Saving Society-Australia.” The car was then exported back to Europe and has been properly maintained and used sparingly ever since. It comes complete with its original YC-series handbook. With extraordinary early history and handsome coachwork, these are fantastic Rolls-Royces to be driven, precisely as Mrs. Brown would have done!