If there is something rock ʼnʼ roll about a Rolls-Royce Phantom V, we tend to think of the 4-litre Austin limousines – the Sheerline and Princess – as a bit pompous and municipal. Current for 20 years in various forms, they began life as owner-driver success symbols, then reinvented themselves as the bedrock of Britainʼs private-hire carriage trade.
Dozens ended their days as whitewashed wedding cars or else met violent deaths on the banger-racing circuit. Yet the story of these stolid cars isnʼt all provincial dignitaries and shotgun weddings. The Beatles used a Princess in the bandʼs early days of fame, as did Bob Dylan on his first UK tour. Christine Keeler recalled it as a ʻRolls-Royceʼ in her memoirs, but the government limousine in which Minister for War John Profumo first wooed her was almost certainly a Vanden Plas Princess.