6.58 metres of sheer luxury (or lunacy?)

• 

If you are connected to the world wide web longer then today, you won’t have missed Bonhams upcoming auction on the Frederiksen collection in Denmark. The auctioneers have made a huge effort of putting the sale on the map with beautiful video footage, unseen before to promote an auction, we believe. Anyhow: the majority of the cars in the Frederiksen collection are of course prewars, with just six exceptions. A 1974 UK-spec Citroen DS and a ’73 US-spec SM for example. Then there are a 1948 Chrysler Town and Country convertible and a ’51 Hundson Hornet convertible (Frederiksen clearly preferred ragtops) and also a Bentley S1 drophead coupe which once belonged to John D. Rockefeller junior.

But the post war star of the show undoubtly is a Rolls-Royce Phantom VI with body by Frua of Turin. With 6.58 meter length the car is likely to be the largest two-door convertible on the planet and definitely one of the more impressive ones. The huge convertible was commissioned by a Swiss consul and delivered in 1971 at a Geneva dealership, which needed another two years (!) to finish it. The massive wooden buck, built to create the car was supposedly burnt in order to have no second example made. However, an unfinished four-door version turned up later, only to be finished in 1991. It definitely takes time to build these massive cars. Frederiksen became the car’s third owner but had it just briefly. When taken over from the consul in 1997 - with more then 400.000 kms on the odometer – it became a display in a curious Swiss Rolls-Royce museum - Frederiksen was next in line. Read the car’s full history here – note it was maroon with brown leather at one stage.

(Words Jeroen Booij, picture courtesy Bonhams)
 

Make a comment, ask a question, give your opinion, share additional information or start a discussion by filling in the fields below.