Only 64 examples of the Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn were fitted with custom coachwork, with one of the most elegant designs being Park Ward’s drophead coupé to style number 322, a “four-light” style with rear quarter windows and especially curvaceous wings that swept down into a taper and then flared over the rear wheels. Only 12 of these cars were produced, all of them left-hand drive, attesting to the appeal of the model to the export model.

Chassis number LSHD54, offered here, was commissioned by Colonel Max Harari. A son of Sir Victor Harari, a Pasha of Egypt, he was a noted sportsman prior to heroic service during World War II. After the war, he lost his properties in Egypt to the Nasser government, and entered the world of high-end art dealing in London; his eventual obituary described him as “an international character with outstanding style and personality”. The Rolls-Royce was equipped to his specification with French-type headlamps and “export bumpers”, and a specially ordered bonnet design, the only example of this design so outfitted. Thus completed, in Black with matching hood and Tan interior, the car was delivered to the Colonel by the Cairo Motor Company, Ltd., in March 1952.

His Rolls-Royce appears to have survived Egyptian appropriation by living in France, where it was reportedly sold in the late 1950s to Italian newspaper baron Angelo Rizzoli. It lived at his holiday home in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat until his death in the early 1970s, then was sold by his children to an Italian collector with whom it remained until 2005. The car had its interior restored at some point in that ownership but has otherwise remained intact, and while suffering from its long-term storage in current ownership, is nonetheless an ideal basis for restoration to its authentic original condition, and complete with its original engine.

This has marvelous potential to be one of the most unique examples of the Silver Dawn, extraordinarily rare in coachbuilt form and here in one of its most beautiful iterations.