1909 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost at The National Motor Museum, Beaulieu.

We are very proud to have been commissioned to carry out the restoration of the interior of such a well-known and important historic vehicle.

For many years this 1909 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost has been the flagship vehicle of The Nation Motor Museum at Beaulieu. During the many vintage car rallies that Kevin has participated in, and during his career as a coach trimmer, The Nation Motor Museum has always been a greatly inspiring place to visit, and a venue of resource and information in his life.

The Silver Ghost has been all over the world promoting the museum for many years on car rallies and events and it was time to restore it back to top condition.

The project took a couple of years to come to fruition. When Kevin was first contacted to go along to the museum for a chat about a few projects, he was taken aback that the 1909 Silver Ghost was on the agenda! It was a tricky project to manage for Doug Hill and Ian Stanfield at the museum, as the vehicle desperately needed new paintwork and interior, but one could not be carried out without the other - as the interior’s finished edges overlap the painted surfaces. Also, the body needed to be removed from the chassis to carry out the work. This had both logistical and cost implications for the museum, these took a long period to iron-out and overcome.

In the winter of 2015, we were delighted to be contacted and given the green light on the project! The body was removed from the chassis and Kevin went down to the Museum’s workshops at Beaulieu and removed all the old interior, ready to go to master coach-painter Phil Gofton, for its painstaking brush-painted finish. The car had been re-trimmed and repaired a few times in its life and areas had been repaired with modern materials like foam and staples to keep the vehicle on the road during its busy life promoting the museum.

The car’s body arrived with us in February 2016 with its fantastic new brush painted coachwork.

Our brief was simple; carry out and fully re-trim all the leatherwork and body using correct traditional methods and authentic materials as close as possible to that of 1909 methods.

We used a special order Connolly Vaumal leather (original suppliers to Rolls Royce), all traditional coach trimming methods were used during the project, with horse hair, hessian, springs and tacks. All finished in lead-filled brass pin bead. The seat cushions had hand-stitched drop boarders, as used in early vehicles and the deep buttoned upholstery was all stuffed 100% with new hair. The late Lord Montague’s ‘M’ motif was copied and embossed back into the new door pockets. The body took over 250 hours to complete and was ready for collection in May 2016.

The body was fitted back on to it’s chassis in the museum’s workshops and can now be seen on display again, in the main museum.