VW SELLS SUPERVALUABLE COLLECTABLE

THE ORIGINAL 1907 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, deemed the world's most valuable collector car, has been sold by the Volkswagen Group for an undisclosed sum to an American collector. Sources suggest the car sold in the region of US$75 million (AU$110.3 million), well over its suggested insured value and eclipsing the previous collector car record held by a Ferrari 250 GTO.

Volkswagen had held the car since it purchased the RollsRoyce and Bentley Company in July 1998.

Affectionately referred to by its registration number, AX-201, it was commissioned by RollsRoyce's Managing Director Claude Johnson. Finished in aluminium paint with silver plated fittings it soon gained the title of the ‘Silver Ghost', a name that would carry across all 40/50HP chassis produced over a 19-year production run. Such was the car's success that it would quickly be promoted as “The Best Car in the World.”

Delivered in June 1907, it was entered by Johnson in the 1907 Scottish Reliability Trial winning the Dewar Trophy for the official Non-Stop Record of 14,932 miles without an involuntary stop.

Subsequently sold to a private customer in 1908 it was used for his annual holiday in Italy over a number of years, before being offered back to the company in 1948. Extensively restored it then travelled the world as a company promotion tool, making several appearances in Australia at motor shows during the 1980s.

The sale in 1998 of the ailing Rolls-Royce and Bentley Company to the Volkswagen Group saw BMW retain the rights to the Rolls-Royce name and logo for the brand through its association with the RollsRoyce PLC aircraft division and in the supply of automotive engines to the car division.

An agreement was finally reached whereby Volkswagen agreed to sell BMW the Spirit of Ecstasy and grille shape trademarks while BMW would continue to supply Volkswagen with Rolls-Royce engines and components until 2003. From that point the new factory at Goodwood took over RollsRoyce manufacturing.

The complex sale saw Volkswagen gain the Crewe factory where AX-201 was housed.

While Volkswagen retained it along with the Bentley heritage collection, the iconic RollsRoyce is said to have provided no real benefit to the company.

The prized Silver Ghost made a rare appearance at Pebble Beach in 2004 during Rolls-Royce's Centenary year and again in Scotland during the centenary celebration for the Scottish Reliability Trial in 2007. Volkswagen always entrusted its care to marque specialists P and A Wood in the UK who fully restored it in 1991.

This Rolls-Royce's recent sale will hopefully mean that it will now be seen far more often at specialist events.