Anthony Kearsley | Applejack Rolls-Royces, Richard Harris’ Phantom V & a £550k Bentley Drophead

The Old Car Lady heads to the RREC National Rally to meet Anthony Kearsley, classic car collector, Auto Couture owner and star of Channel 4’s Handcuffed. Anthony walks Sam through some of the most extraordinary cars at the event, including a £1,000,000 one-off Bentley S3 Drophead, a 1933 Silver Wraith Landaulet with an Edwardian coachbuilt body, and Richard Harris’ Phantom V…the only car he ever owned.

A Rolls-Royce Spirit in Applejack reunited with the Vanden Plas 1500 it was built to match, the Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith Sedanca built for an oil baron & a Bentley R-Type with no roof and another restoration story.

Featured Stories

The Applejack Spirit and the Vanden Plas 1500: A Spirit stripped and restored in Applejack to match a surviving Vanden Plas 1500. The husband who wanted the same colour on a Spirit died before he could order it. Anthony completed what he never lived to commission. £50,000, six years. The two cars met for the first time at this rally.

The £550,000 Bentley S3 Drophead: No Rolls-Royce or Bentley drophead existed in the 60s if you wanted one, you had it coachbuilt. Anthony commissioned this one to Mulliner blueprints: acrylic white, St James red, electric red mohair roof. Over £550,000 and multiple failed delivery dates later, PNA have quoted a million pounds to build one today. He says never again.

Richard Harris’ Phantom V: The only car Richard Harris ever owned, gifted reputedly by Princess Margaret, used by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton for their Wales tour, left in a New York car park for 25 years and retrieved with £100,000 in parking fees. Anthony first saw it at Jack Barclay’s in the 1990s. It is midnight blue and it is for sale.

The Withnail and I Sedanca: A Silver Wraith Hooper Sedanca built for Calouste Gulbenkian, the Armenian oil baron who earned 5% of every barrel sold. Lizard skin interior, a speedo in the back to monitor the chauffeur, and a starring role as Uncle Monty’s car in Withnail and I. Sold for £95,000. Worth considerably more to the right person.

The Bentley R-Type With No Roof: Converted from a four-door saloon to a convertible at a cost of a quarter of a million pounds, then discovered it would cost another fifty grand to fit a proper hood. It went to auction. Highest bid was £58,500. The lady of the house has decreed it is not coming back.

What You’ll Learn

Why buying a fully restored classic is almost always better value than restoring one yourself. Why the pre-war Rolls-Royce market is losing its custodians faster than it is gaining new ones. Why the chauffeur always got the leather seat and the owner got the fabric. What MacArthur Park has to do with a Phantom V. And why a car restored to a quarter of a million pounds can fail to reach £60,000 at auction.

Key Questions

• Is it ever worth commissioning a one-off coachbuilt Rolls-Royce or Bentley today? Anthony says probably not twice. The £550,000 Bentley would cost a million to build now. The heartache and failed delivery dates are real. Buy the best restored car someone else has already suffered through.
• Are pre-war Rolls-Royces undervalued? Anthony bought a 1933 Silver Wraith Landaulet with over £200,000 of restoration for £26,500 at auction. The previous owner had Alzheimer’s. The people who restore these cars are leaving the scene faster than new buyers are arriving.
• What makes a car genuinely special beyond its condition? Every car Anthony walks Sam past has a human story: a husband’s unfulfilled wish, a hellraising actor’s only possession, a billionaire’s bespoke commission. Anthony’s view is that the story is inseparable from the car and always will be.

A Nod To

Anthony Kearsley and Auto Couture, who offer chauffeur hire from £1,500. The film The Ghost of Richard Harris on Sky Arts, featuring Anthony, Jared Harris and the Phantom V. The RRC National Rally. And Hooper, Mulliner and the great coachbuilders whose work still commands rooms full of people who cannot quite believe what they are looking at.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I've been invited down to the RRC annual, what are we calling it? FAST.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

The national rally, really. Or international rally, because you've got owners from all over Europe and the UK, all the class winners from all the local areas coming back to the international and national rally.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

So it's the big one. You've got a fabulous stand here. For there's a few cards here that I already know.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

And I love the Applejack story.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

So you've got I'll tell you back to 1980. Yeah. So you you have very little, but you've played the pools and you've won quite a lot of money. The football pool.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

The football. Do you remember the football pools?

SPEAKER_01 0:33

So you've always wanted a Vandenpla 1500, but the Metro was launched the same year, and Applejack was the generic Metro launch colour in the palette. And so you ordered your Vandenplaer 1500 in Applejack, which was basically a riot of 70s bling, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

And the very unusual colour.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

And a very unusual colour. They made very few of them in Applejack, I think six or maybe eight. It's the only one left. But the story goes that the lady who ordered it, her husband wanted the new spirit to be made in Applejack. And so he died, and so he was never done. So I decided, as a tribute and rather a bit of fun, we would restore a Series 1 spirit to exactly the same colour palette as the Vandplaa 1500. So this was originally green, but a different green, obviously, so it's been completely stripped. £45, £50,000 later, you have a Spirit One map book match to the Vandenplaa trim with the same chamois, leather.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

What's the mileage on this at the moment?

SPEAKER_01 1:32

£40,000. It was ice green, so the logbook hasn't been changed. But there we are. It was a beautiful job. It's not been wrapped, it's fully painted. It's a fa it's a fabulous job, but nobody would have done this to a Series One spirit, let alone in Applejack. So it is unique.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

This must have been an eye watering bill from the body shop.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

It was over fifty thousand for the whole job. The trimming alone was nine thousand, but if you're going to do a job, you've got to do it right.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

You always do it. Yeah. Just crazy height.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

The last degree. It's just a beautiful thing. I'll show you under the the engine preparation's been fantastic as well. It's just it's it's just beautiful. It's what you would have received in 1980 had the and the factory would have definitely painted the colour. Well the order was in, but he never lived to see it.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

There's a strong argument that this might be better than when it was new now.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

I think probably I think probably you might well be right. Yeah. But it it gets such a happy reaction from people, and I think it's very beautiful. And I'm very proud of it. And to have them together is really special.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

When you see it now, you wonder why Rolls didn't offer colours like this.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

That's right, but of course they've just reintroduced it on the new range. I put it It's called Neon Knights now, but it's the same colour. I just think it's a wonderful thing. Not every cup of tea, but people say, why have you done that? Because I could. And the bottom line is why not?

SPEAKER_00 2:53

It goes back to we discussed this before about car stories, and cars have got histories and stories and backgrounds and families and people that wrap around that. And this to me is the story of the people of the couple. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Not just the cars. Absolutely right. There's a personal story behind it. And they'll never be parted, and I will never sell them, and that's the way it is for now. Of course, you can never say never, they'll outlive me, so who knows where they'll end up. But as a pair, they've got to stay a pair, haven't they? Stable mates. Of course. Just lovely. And it's the first time they've met because, of course, this only was finished literally a week ago. Six years of a job.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Ridiculous timing. But there you go, that's the story of the Rolls Royce restoration world. I won't go into that yet. But there you are.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Your commitment to doing them to this standard never ceases to amaze me.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Oh, thank you. A little bit OCD. It helps my aversions.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Be shot of trouble. Yeah, absolutely. And sat next to it was another Rolls Royce Silver Spirit, but this one I already knew.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

This brings me on to this car, which of course was your late fathers. A very rare colour combination in this country. Now in California, perfect. White, red leather, cream piping, very Essex, very 1980s, but nobody really would have ordered that colour. And so it's a very special colour, but I like it because it's true British colours. St George, white and red, for me, that's a really special Rolls-Royce colour.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

So I know you've got other quite a few cards in your collection, red over white. Is this the first one? Did it be a colour?

SPEAKER_01 4:18

It was, yeah, it was. It's the first Rolls Royce my partner and I actually got.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

So it's very special.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

But then, of course, after that, we decided to purchase the Continental Chinese eye, which is not something you're meant to say these days, but that's its official title.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

They are, they always have been.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

And that was Lulu bought that for Maurice Gibb, and that's in France at the moment, but that's white, acrylic white, with the red top. So because of that, we then decided to commission this new build, which is a Bentley S3 drop head. Should we go and have a to the same colour palette, acrylic white with a St. James red, and electric red mohair roof. Now, back in the day, if you were very wealthy, you wanted a Rolls Royce or Bentley drophead. They didn't make one. So you would buy your four-door from Jack Barclays or whoever, and you take it at Mulliners, and they would make you an adaption, which was a two-door convertible. And it was a tr an immense amount of money.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Did they make any structural adjustments to the car?

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Yes, they did, yeah. It's a very significant job. However, they never made a white S3, and so we undertook to have one commissioned to Mulliner Blueprints. So we bought a Bentley S3 and actually a Cloud 3, we did two, and had them recommissioned and rebuilt. So over £550,000 later, there she is. And it's it hasn't done 100 miles since it was completed. But it's still got the 64 registration. It's still a correct classic, but it didn't exist eight years ago. It just wasn't there. So you've done all the snagging runs now, everything's been a lot of snagging runs, a lot of failed delivery dates, a real a real trial. I wouldn't do another. Very stressful, very painful actually, but a fabulous thing. Now it's finished.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

You're glad you have come out the other end. Yeah. But never again.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Never again. Never not in the month of Sundays, but a great thing. But a complete and utter money pit along the way. Estimated times, COVID, you name it, tripling in costs. But interestingly, as time's gone on, the costs have caught up, so the costs have balloons as it's going up, but then so has the economy. So everything's more expensive than it was when it started. Does that make any sense?

SPEAKER_00 6:36

It does. It's cost you to do aside what's it worth in the marketplace?

SPEAKER_01 6:40

The Rolls-Royce that we have, which is its twin, we'd sent to auction just to see what it would get, and it got $185, which was nowhere near enough. I've now been offered a quarter of a million for it. Cost $550. So I suppose that's the price you pay to play. But the reality is the value for money for somebody buying it now would be incredible. We didn't buy it to sell it. I put it into auction just to test it. This'll never be sold. But if you went out to buy one today, it would be 700,000 to a million. Pinot would have quoted a million of pounds to build one of these today. So costs have just gone mad.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

So there will come a time when people think, oh, that was worth doing. But it's not today, but it will it might be in a year or two.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

My advice is always buy the best restored car you can because buying one that needs doing and doing it yourself will always It's always going to be painful. Freak your bank account and your heart.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Yeah. When we look at some of the other cars that are host restoration with other people who've owned them, that's where you get the real value for money.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Yeah, buy one that somebody else spent all the time and money on and then go and enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

But then again, you could have looked the world over. They didn't make one of these, so we had no option but to do it. But what a great thing. Now that it's running beautiful, it's now fine. You can hire it with the greatest pleasure. In fact, it really needs to be true.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

What does it cost to hire something like this?

SPEAKER_01 8:00

It depends where it is, of course. We have done a wedding in the south of France, which was a lot of money. Yeah. But a local, let's say, an evening out, a show for £1,500 maybe. Okay. £2,000 for anything further away, two and a half thousand. If you went into central London, it suddenly balloons to three and a half to five. So that's what I mean. Things have gone. It's a milliapole colour. And it's a one-off. That's right. That's a one-off. What have we got saying? The R-type is again, this car doesn't belong to me, it belongs to a friend of mine who spent quarter of a million pounds on this. This was a Bentley R-type four door.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

You can see where this is going with what you have to spend on these cars to get them in these conditions, though, can't you?

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Yep, they wanted a drop head. And it was a four-door saloon. They converted it to a two-door, then thought, no, we'll go the whole hog. So they converted it to a convertible. Quarter of a million pounds later, it doesn't have a hood. It's a it is an open top. It hasn't got a top.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

So it's just a top Torah.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Yeah. But the reason why is after quarter of a million pounds, they thought, hang on a minute. Ran out of money to put a lid on it. For another 50 grand to put a proper roof on that. So they sent it to auction in this market just to see. Highest bid they got was fifty-eight and a half thousand pounds. So he said it's not going anywhere, Anthony. I said, okay, we'll put 85,000 on it at the rally and see what's happened. The lady of the house has decreed it's not to cut back because she's not happy. But that's the market we're in, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 9:21

She's managed to get it out of the garage now, hasn't she?

SPEAKER_01 9:24

But it is a beautiful thing. It runs beautifully. It's a new colour, it's Aurora, which is a new Bentley colour. But I think it's fabulous.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Does it drive? It's fantastic. Because when these are set up, they're wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

It's a great thing on a sunny day to be bowling through the Suffolk countryside. It's absolutely fabulous, but it has no wood. Let's go and have a look at the 1953 Wraith that starred in the Culk movie with Nail and I. Ah. Let's go and look at that. This is a lovely thing. Just about to say, can you tell me about this? So this is a perfect example of a car that was totally restored by the previous owner who sadly had to part with his collection due to Alzheimer's and advancing age. And that is the problem with these pre-war cars. The sort of people who have them and have restored them are leaving us. And the sort of people who want them are very thin on the ground. So this particular car has had a restoration well in excess of £200,000. And I bought it adoption for £26,500.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

How long have you owned it?

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Just twelve months. But if you look at it, the quality of workmanship here is just fantastic. Look at that jump seat with a backrest, but look at the quality of fittings. It's just spectacular.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

The attention to detail when these are done right and when they were new is mind-blowing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

But what's interesting about this car, if you notice it, it's very high roofed.

unknown 10:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

It's actually a laund. And a lot of people, of course, replaced the leather with plastics. This has still got the original leather folding back. So we know the history of this car. It was ordered by a lady in 1933. But it doesn't look like a 33 car. It looks more Edwardian. It looks very Edwardi a carriage. That's right. So she the specifics were she wanted to have an Edwardian car built on a modern chassis.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

So it was built in period with a Barker, Edwardian body, because they both wore top hats and headdress. And at London, it's a London town car, they'd have the back down so she could have her headdress on. Amazing, really. I think it's real Monte Carlo or bust and it's real Tony Curtis. I want you guys I want to put skis on it and put it in the snow in the winter. Love it. And it drives beautifully. It's just a sweetheart.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Have you done a few miles in this one?

SPEAKER_01 11:38

I know you drive them all. I do drive it a lot. And I just love the quirky sounds of it. It's just lovely. They're charming. And it's very power-larking. Very much nicer car than that. But isn't it? It's just poetry. But for the money, it's ridiculous. So that's the way to do it, is buy one when somebody's restored it.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

It is, it really is.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

This race here belonged to a very important Rolls-Royce collector who spent £350,000 restoring it. I purchased it not that long ago for £45,000. And it's just beautiful. What's going on with these? Each door has its own yale not. Does it really? Isn't that fantastic? So who trimmed it? The market will come back. It was done by the same company that I use in Langley. No, I bought it like this. But again, this was restored. This runs like a new pin. But again, it's a right-hand gear stick, manual floor shape. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a sweetheart to it.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

It's in the Riley Pathfinder not long ago that had one down there.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

I like it. Look at this razor-edged design from 1954. And it's quite rakish. The back end on it is beautiful. Yeah, very special. The front is typical as you would expect from back. But the original owner always had chrome studs on his bonnet. And of course, being a silver wraith, it has a kneeling lady. The Wraith always had a kneeling lady.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Yeah, do you know why though? I don't I know the I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

No, I don't either. All I can tell you is it deference. Cars for Arabia at the time had to be kneeling. And I know some Arabian cars back in the day, you had to deliver the car without the lady on it to talk.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

Why is that?

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Because in in those countries, that the deference the lady made to the male, they had to choose if they wanted to do it on the in the first place. Which isn't very nice, is it?

SPEAKER_00 13:25

In the olden days when that shit was acceptable. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

So now we have the car I wanted to talk to you about, which is which is this, which is the silver Wraith Hooper Sedanka. So the front of this here comes off and the rear opens. And I might show you that in a minute if I've got the keys for it, but it's a really important car.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

This is probably my favourite car of yours. You've got I love I love the Wraith anyway, but I think that the Sedanka's really rare.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

It's a one-off. And so, apart from the fact that it was Uncle Monty's car in the film with Nail and I, which is really special. It was built for New Barble Benku. It was the wealthiest man in the world in 1953. He was an oil baron, Mr. 5%. Google him. He's Armenian, eccentric billionaire, got five percent of every oil barrel sold in his time. It's a fascinating story, but he could indulge him with Hooper, the royal coach builders, to build eccentric cars to his design. So this particular car has lizard skin interior. Oh, it's got a speedo in the back, so he can keep an eye on his errant chauffeur. A bit of a control freak. Absolutely. And this car has had over £250,000 spent on it. Not by me, but by the previous owner. And it's worth a fraction of that now. It's on sale at £95,000. So for the sale, yeah. The lizard skin and the interior is is as it is. I've not restored it.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

In the olden days whereas now leather interior is denotes luxury or the more expensive interior. During this time, the chauffeur got the leather seat because you could wipe it clean from his from his dirty, possibly oily trousers and boots, but the the posh people in the back got the comfortable, the cool West of England cloth. Fabric cloth, yeah. So that's why in the cars of this age you get it's the other way around from how we perceive it now. Leather in the front, tradesmen's right. And then the posh people got the fabric in the back.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

So going back to the stories about the cars, it's all about the passions, it's all about the history. They are time machines. And this is very special. Just come and have a look at this. So the late Richard Harris, of course, most young people know him as Dumbledore. Yes. Was one of the greatest actors of his time in the 60s. He was a hellraiser, of course.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

It was a car he was a celebration.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

He was a very much that. This was his Phantom 5. This was the only car he ever owned, and he never drove because he was always rather anebriated, blessing. So he recorded his song MacArthur Park in this car at Abbey Road Studios and said to a chauffeur, if this song is a hit, you can have the car. Of course, it was a massive hit. He talks through it. He left the cake out in the rain. It's a very moving song.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

I don't I I know the dog.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Yeah, anyway, it always brings a tear to my eye, but he was a wonderful actor. I know his son very well. And we filmed of a film called The Ghost of Richard Harris, which is the story of this car on SkyArts It is throughout the life of the family. It's the only car he owned.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

I was just about to say he wasn't a classic car.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

No, he was gifted it reputedly by the late Princess Margaret. Rolls Royce weren't keen to supply him a car because, of course, he was a serious drinker. As you probably know, Oliver Reed is one of my favourite characters. And the heap's part of this, this was a Rat Pack 60s swing mobile, which is just fab, isn't it? I bet this could tell a few stories. Absolutely. Richard Burton Elizabeth Taylor used it for their wedding, they toured Wales in it, and he famously took it to New York.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

So did they own it or did he always just lend it out to his friends?

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Was it Oh he lent it out to them, but he took it to New York for use when he moved there, and he left it for 25 years in the car park and forgot about it. And 25 years later, on a hundred grand's worth of car park fees, his accountant said, I think you should bring the car back. So it was shipped back to Jack Barclays when I first met the car in the 1990s, where he had it completely rebuilt.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Is that when you were working at Jack? That's right.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

And the car I first met there, I never dreamt I'd actually own it. But it's a real magical piece of history. And it's midnight blue, it's a classical colour.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

I don't know whether you can tell on the camera, but it's a the deepest of blues of disco bits, isn't it? You can just see it where the sun heads say.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

It's just spangly on this wing here, look.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

It's a very beautiful colour. She's very special.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

So who painted it this colour?

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Jack Barclays did it.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Okay. And what colour was it originally? Black.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

No, it's midnight. It was always midnight blue. It's always been midnight blue. But this is the newer version, so there's a little bit more of a crinkle in it.

unknown 17:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

But a very special car. And he said, if a car could talk, this is the one to talk.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

The story is this one could tell, eh?

SPEAKER_01 18:04

So do look it up. The Ghost of Richard Harris is a film on SkyArt. Okay. The car, myself, and Jared Harris, who's a very famous actor today, we talk through the car's history.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

I'll find the link and I'll put it in the comments in the show notes as well.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

And that's also on that banner. There we are.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Thank you so much for showing us round. Pleasure to see you.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Always a pleasure, my love. Oh, that's it. Thank you very much.