Getting hold of some of the exhibits has been tough – forinstance, the logistics of transporting the 30-ton London Midlandand Scottish royal train carriage to Goodwood. And when they foundthe 1972 Citroën Maserati SM with extended bodywork by HenriChapron, which transported the Queen during a four-day officialvisit in 1972. It turned out to still be part of the officialFrench presidential motor pool. "We had heard aboutit," says Watling, "but didn"t know where it was.Then we discovered it was still on active service in the garage ofthe Élysée Palace." One of NicolasSarkozy"s last acts as the 23rd president of the Frenchrepublic was to give permission for the car to come to Goodwood . From America comes what Watling calls "a monster of acar".
The 1950 Lincoln Cosmopolitan "Bubble Top"normally lives in the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Detroit. Itwas used by President Harry Truman and subsequent presidents DwightEisenhower and Lyndon Johnson. The Queen rode in it on a statevisit in 1951. There"s the Queen Mother"s Jaguar Mark VII and, mostpoignantly, a royal Daimler built for King George VI"sFifties royal tour, which never happened. "We"ve been very lucky with a lot of thevehicles," says Watling.
"Also with our sponsorship.Autoglym are the main sponsors and will also supply eightspecialists to look after the exhibits. Diageo has a specialDiamond Jubilee Johnnie Walker whisky and they"ve been veryhelpful." It has been a considerable effort for the resourceful Watling, whohas had to beg and borrow cars from all over the place. "On July 2 I might regard it as a labour of love," hesays. "Right now it"s just hard work." As the Festival of Speed"s media partner, we were givenexclusive access to drive two of the Queen"s cars that willform part of the concours over the weekend. On the following pageswe test a 1926 Rolls-Royce used to drive the Duke of Edinburgh inIndia during 1965, and a 1953 Humber that accompanied the Queen andPrince Philip on the Queen's Coronation tour.
1953 Commonwealth Tour Humber Super Snipe In 1953 the Queen and Prince Philip embarked on the first-everworld tour by a reigning monarch. They left London and visitedBermuda and Jamaica, where they boarded the SS Gothic and sailedthrough the Panama Canal and on to Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand.They then sailed for Australia, and on to Ceylon, Aden, Uganda andMalta, where they were reunited with their two children and sailedback to Britain via Gibraltar on the new royal yacht Britannia. Gruelling doesn"t begin to describe the ordeal for theglamorous young couple, who everyone wanted a glimpse of –it"s estimated that three quarters of the population ofAustralia saw them. At each stop the itinerary was published inhalf-inch-thick books, timed to the minute, with no room for error.
This Humber Super Snipe drophead accompanied them. These carsgained a phenomenal reputation for toughness in the Second WorldWar when they were used as staff cars, including Field MarshalMontgomery"s "Old Faithful". The 1949 Motor road test of the Humber Super Snipe concurred:"Perhaps the strongest impression left by the latest HumberSuper Snipe models is that of a car which is remarkably equal toalmost any demand made upon it." A few miles at the wheel of Denis Cunningham"s royal dropheadSuper Snipe leaves you with the impression that royal chauffeursmust have been tiny. This conversion maximised rear leg room at theexpense of a front bench seat so far forward that you are virtuallyon top of the big steering wheel. The 100bhp, 4.1-litre straight-six provides oodles of torquevirtually from idle, but the column-mounted four-speed change hasnot worn its years well.
You have to hold it in second and thatleaves you an arm short when manoeuvring on those big white-walledtyres. The seats are soft and comfortable and the driver gets afull set of instruments. Top speed was quoted at 81.8mph with0-60mph in 20.6sec and 15mpg. While this 15ft 7¼in long,1.9-ton six seater is compact by contemporary limo standards, itstill feels ponderous and huge on modern roads.
Cunningham bought it in 2007 from Australia in an eBay auction. Theold car required a bit of TLC, including "a bit of paint anda bit of trim", he says. The details are charming, includinga set of roller blinds in the back to protect the royal knees fromsunburn, neat folding C-pillars that fit under polished wood coversand remounted trafficator indicators in the front wings. One detailthat Cunningham wasn"t leaving to chance was the stork bonnetmascot"s rubber beak. He removed it the second we rolled to ahalt.
"People tug on it and it pulls clean out," he said,"and they"re as rare as." 1926 Rolls-Royce 20 Surely the world"s stocks of metal polish couldn"tmaintain more than one Rolls like this at any given time. PeterVacher, the owner, admits that he keeps it out of the rain as muchas possible, because keeping that deep shine on the aluminiumcoachwork takes a lot of elbow grease. As well as a royal connection, this magnificent Rolls-Royce 20 isthe only model that Rolls ever refused to guarantee."That"s because their recommendation was that the bodyweight should not exceed 35cwt [3,920lb]," he says."But this one weighs 52cwt [5,824lb]." And magnificent though the Windovers of London cabriolet body is,it doesn"t do much for the performance of the 50bhp, 3,128cc,long-stroke six-cylinder engine. Culshaw and Horrobin"sComplete Catalogue of British Cars lists the 20 as having a topspeed of 65mph and fuel consumption of 21mpg.
Vacher reportscruising at a "steady" 50mph and about 15mpg. The Rolls was ordered by the Maharaja of Bharatpur as a dowry forone of his daughters. But it was never picked up by the husband, sothe Maharaja used it for tiger-shooting, hence the enormous spotlamp on the driver"s side. There are a few other extras too.Vacher explains: "The Maharaja was fond of warning people ofhis approach, so he had a klaxon fitted and a Bosch wind-tone hornand a more traditional boa constrictor.
They cleared hoi polloi,but you couldn"t just hoot at a sacred cow, so he had aWinkworth electric bell fitted." Presumably the massivethree-deck bumper was there to ease the sacred beasts to one side.Funny, because Henry Royce is reported to have said:"Bumpers, I hate." The Maharaja also specified blue-tinted glass for the enclosedpassenger compartment so the public couldn"t gaze upon hiswomen. Should it prove too hot, the windows could be lowered andopaque flyscreens raised. The British royal connection came in 1965 when the Duke ofEdinburgh visited a bird sanctuary close to the Maharaja"spalace. This was the car used to drive the Duke around the site andthere is a picture of him in the Rolls with its hood furled. Considering that the 20 was regarded as an abomination byRolls-Royce enthusiasts when it was launched in 1922, this is anextraordinarily easy car to drive.
The gearbox is a joy comparedwith its contemporaries. That four-speed with its right-hand changeand four-wheel servo brakes were the 20 updates in 1925, butanother of the Maharaja"s penchants was a dislike offront-wheel brakes so Vacher"s car makes do with rear brakesonly. In the exposed chauffeur"s position, the leather seats (clothwas an expensive luxury in those days, so that was fitted in therear seats only) have that musty smell of old binoculars. Thesteering is light and direct once above walking speed and therefinement is simply astonishing, with the big engine idling almostsilently and barely audible even at speed. It"s verycomfortable, even driving on a grass airstrip, where the Rollsproceeded sedately and serenely.
It leaves you wondering whetherthere is any more suitable royal car than one with the interlockingRs on the front. Bentley State Limousine Test drivers at Millbrook Proving Ground called it"Betty"s Barge" when they tested the BentleyState Limousine 10 years ago. Gargantuan and ugly this 20ft4in-long, 3.4-ton monster might be, but it also representsone of the greatest pieces of chutzpah by Bentley"s owner,Volkswagen. After much wrangling, the future of the old Vickers-owned car-makerRolls-Royce Bentley had been decided.
BMW got Rolls-Royce, but hadto build a new factory to accommodate its yet-to-be-designedPhantom. VW kept Bentley and the Crewe factory along with theservicing and parts business for older Rolls-Royce models. But italso kept connections with the royal household, whose newest statelimousine, a Rolls-Royce Phantom VI, was then 15 years old. So at the suggestion of the Rolls-Royce engineer Bill Slater, VWoffered to build the Queen a new state limousine, which would bedesigned and engineered by 50 of the company"s Britishsuppliers. Based on an Arnage Red Label, the royal Bentley had anadditional 2ft 4½in in the wheelbase.
The engine is a6.75-litre, twin-turbo V8, giving about 400bhp and 616lb ft oftorque, although subsequent conversions to LPG and bioethanol havereduced the performance. There"s no performance data forthese royal Bentleys (the royal household subsequently purchasedthe prototype model), but a standard Arnage Red Label is good for155mph, 0-60mph in 5.9 seconds and about 14mpg. Code-named Project Diamond, this was effectively an all-new car andthe attention to detail was painstaking. Interior designers usedstand-ins for the Queen complete with foam-rubber crowns to get thecorrect window lines.
There was also quite specific input from the Palace. The Queen isno stranger to the greasy side of cars, as Richard Charlesworth,Bentley"s director of royal and VIP relations, explains:"The Queen trained as a mechanic/driver in the AuxiliaryTerritorial Service in the Second World War. So she was personallyinterested in the development and saw the first renderings andfull-size clay models." Just before the handover, we drove this big Bentley, though we werenever able to admit it at the time. It drove well and wassurprisingly wieldy and fast – Joe Last, the Queen"shead chauffeur (pictured below), even got it sideways on theMillbrook test track. The main thing for the Queen, however, wasthe low-speed ride.
"You have to remember these are cars built to do ajob," said Last. "The only extras we carry are achamois leather, spare bulbs and a map so that if the Duke ofEdinburgh points something out at the side of the road we can lookit up and tell him what it is." Most of a state limousine"s work is at painfully slow speeds."It has to be smooth and not Overheat Protection," said Last."If we"re driving past a school, the Queen likes to goslowly, so the children get a chance to wave. We get down to 8mphat times. She said to me, 'I"m not bothered about high speed,but how does it feel going slowly?"".
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