John Lennon’s Rolls-Royce Phantom goes on display in London

Rolls-Royce is returning John Lennon’s own 1965 Phantom V model to London on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the historic Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.

The unique psychedelic Phantom V is normally displayed at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Canada.

But, from July 29 to August 2, 'The John Lennon Phantom V’ will be part of Rolls-Royce’s 'The Great Eight Phantoms’ exhibition at Bonhams on Bond Street (an area of London Lennon often drove through in this very car).

When Lennon first took delivery of the Phantom V, on June 3, 1965, it was painted in Rolls-Royce’s 'Valentine Black’ colour, but was repainted in its current eye-catching scheme, with a dominant yellow hue, from April 1967 and unveiled just days before the launch of the Beatle’s game-changing eighth album on June 1.

The Phantom V’s so-called psychedelic paint scheme is in step with the album cover of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – unusually an LP with no bands (you played one side entirely from start to finish before flipping and doing the same with the other side) and from which no single was released.

Normally referred to as the sound track for the 'Summer of Love’, the Grammy award-winning Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album spent 27 weeks at number one in the UK and topped the US charts for 15 weeks.

In later life, Lennon claimed he always wanted to be an eccentric millionaire and traditional Rolls-Royce enthusiasts would suggest his Phantom V model took significant steps in that direction.

At Lennon’s behest, Rolls-Royce converted the car’s rear seat to a double bed, installed a custom sound system which included an external tannoy, a TV, telephone, refrigerator and, naturally, a gimballed record player.

The wild new colour scheme – including a floral Romany (the language of Gypsies) scroll design and a zodiac symbol on the roof – was the work of Surrey-based coachbuilders JP Fallon.

In 1965, in its previous black paintwork, the Phantom V was used to transport the Beatles to Buckingham Palace where Lennon received his MBE. In 1967, in the psychedelic scheme, the car returned Lennon to the Palace as he handed-back the MBE, partly to highlight his opposition to the Vietnam War.

Despite telling an interviewer in 1964 that he would never live in America, in 1970, with wife Yoko Ono, Lennon did in fact relocate to New York City and the couple famously set-up home in the Dakota Apartments on the corner of 72nd Street and Central Park West.

His wild-looking Rolls-Royce Phantom V also crossed the Atlantic and was loaned by Lennon to mates such as The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and The Moody Blues to use in and around the 'Big Apple’.

Billionaire Jim Pattison donated the car to the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1977.

Lennon also owned a regular all-white Rolls-Royce Phantom V.