What do Rolls-Royce and bus bodies have in common? Next to nothing. But Jonckheere, the famed 20th century coach-builder-turned-tour-bus-customizer, is tapping Turkish designer Ugur Sahin to revive the swooping lines of one of its original handmade Rollers.
The original Rolls-Royce Jonckheere Aerodynamic Coupe was designed for a Detroit heiress who commissioned a 1924 Phantom with a convertible body. It packed a 7.66-liter inline six engine running on a four-speed manual transmission, and Jonckheere gave it bespoke luggage and a rear fin for added stability. Thanks to the insulation, even at 100 mph, the cabin is supposedly church quiet.
The Raja of Nanpara, an Indian regional monarch under British rule, snagged the car before it could make it to Michigan and sent it to the Jonckheere brothers in Belgium, who made the gorgeous hand-crafted body. Rumor has it that Raja wanted to send the one-off 'vert as a present for Prince Edward, but the factory records were destroyed in World War II, and to this day, no one knows who originally drew the car’s original lines.
After the Rolls was bought and sold multiple times during the 1950s, American Max Opie purchased the one-off and restored the coupe to factory-fresh condition. Sensing it needed a bit more subtlety, he painted it with six pounds of gold dust and lacquer. It disappeared until 1991, when an unnamed Japanese businessman bought it for $1.5 million. In 2004, the Petersen Museum acquired it and re-painted its original black gloss exterior and red leather interior.
The original 1925 model has lived in the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles since 2001, but it came out for the Queen of England's Diamond Jubilee at the Windsor Castle Concours d'Elegance. The one-off model designed by Sahin will end up in a lucky owner's garage and the design firm is in talks with investors to get the funds to build the car.
