Rolls Royce Silver Shadow Shooting Brake

We must be locked into that Glastonbury state of mind.

But in the process of noodling around thinking about car sand rock’n’roll and car culture, we found yet another amazing car owned by a member of The Who.

This Rolls Royce Silver Shadow shooting brake was owned by bassist John Entwistle.

 

When the Silver Shadow series was launched in 1965, Rolls Royce announced that they combined advanced engineering and safety specifications with traditional Rolls-Royce standards of craftsmanship, and that in the manner of their performance they were as revolutionary as the Silver Ghost…

The Silver Shadow went on to become the definitive Roller – and the epitome of what a generation would think of as a luxury vehicle.

These new kinds of Rolls Royce really were a complete break with tradition. They were the first Rolls Royce cars to have a complete unitary chassis, the first to come with all-round independent suspension, the first to come with four power-operated disc brakes. The roof line was a full 4 inches lower than that of the Silver Cloud that it preceded it too.

This sleeker, more modern Rolls was powered by the tried and tested 6.2-litre V8 that had been used in the Silver Cloud – until in 1970 emissions regs necessitated a more efficient, engine.

An estate/shooting brake version of the Shadow was never created (more’s the pity) – so this special estate version of the Shadow was commissioned by John Entwistle, the bass guitarist with ‘The Who’.

Strangely, when Bonham’s auctioned the car a couple of years ago, the coach builder who did the conversion was unknown– but we DO know that for pure rock’n’roll period, socially aspiring steeze – little can compare to chopping, stretching and allowing your Roller to be used on the Grouse shoot in Scotland.

Fair play, Mr Entwistle….