10 interesting facts about John Lennon’s Rolls-Royce

The British Crown owned two of them, ridden by Queen Elizabeth II and the Queen Mother. However, even they are outshone by the car’s most famous owner: John Lennon of European rock band the Beatles.

Lennon’s car had a life as eccentric – and almost as interesting – as its owner. You could write a book about it but, just in case you don’t feel like reading one, here are 10 facts about the world’s most famous Rolls.

1. It cost £6,000, and another £6,000 went to London coach builder Wood & Pickett to fit it out with an all-white interior.

2. It was kitted out with a bump-resisting ‘floating’ record player, a telephone, a television and a double bed in the rear.

3. It was the first car in England to have tinted black windows.

4. It is incorrect to describe the car’s famous paint job as ‘psychedelic’. It was, in fact, inspired by colourful Romani caravans. A Dutch artist group called ‘The Fool’, who had previously painted a caravan on Lennon’s property, performed the redecoration.

5. The paint job caused much snobbish handwringing. Lennon reported that a woman once attacked him with an umbrella in outrage at his sacrilege.

6. Lennon rarely drove the car, preferring to employ chauffeurs. He was a poor driver and it showed when he ploughed a car (not the Rolls) into a ditch while driving in Scotland on vacation with Yoko Ono, his son Julian and Ono’s daughter, Kyoko. He gave up driving after the crash.

7. Lennon returned his MBE in 1969 as an act of anti-war protest. He said of the act: “In a way it was hypocritical of me to accept it, but I’m glad I did, really, because it meant that four years later I was able to use it to make a gesture.” And what car did he drive up to the gates of Buckingham Palace in? You guessed it.

8. After Lennon and Ono married, they shipped the car with them to New York and loaned it out to artists including the Rolling Stones, the Moody Blues and Bob Dylan.

9. Lennon let go of the car when he experienced tax problems in 1977. He donated it to the New York–based Cooper Hewitt Museum at the Smithsonian Institute instead of paying his $250,000 tax bill.

10. The car didn’t stay a museum piece for long. In 1985, the Smithsonian put it up for auction at Sotheby’s. It sold for 2.3 million US dollars, making it the most expensive automobile sold at auction at the time. This record has since been exceeded – to say the least. According to Wikipedia, the current record holder is a Ferrari 250 GTO that sold for a breathtaking US$38,115,000.

And what if you want to see Lennon’s Rolls-Royce now? After passing through other hands we haven’t had space to mention, it now lives at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Canada.

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