Earls Court Motorfair 1977 show car

Please bear in mind that time moves on. These photos were contributed in 2015, 2022 and 2023.
Do not assume that the situation (or the people, or the cars) will remain as shown forever.

Many years ago I found a press photo (no. 282027) showing the Daimler stand, with a DS420, at the Motorfair Exhibition at Earls Court in London, 19-30 October 1977. This is the small B&W photo shown at the right; click on this thumbnail to see the large version on the Press Photos page of this website.

This was car 1M3506BW, manufacturing date Sept. 2, 1977. Its body is light green over dark metallic green, very handsome. The position of the separation between the two body colours is exceptional, especially near the headlamps. No other sales publication in my collection has it located as shown on this photo. The wing mirrors have been replaced by door mirrors. And, albeit small: white wall tyres!

Click here for a YouTube video starting at 0:55 where the car is shown for 8 sec.
The show was a sales success, with 8 limousines sold and 12 "still being negotiated". The "Carriagecraft" magazine (in-house magazine for VandenPlas in London) published reports in October and in December 1977: click to see them on our page with "various sales illustrations".

The interior was in green dralon, velours lookalike, and Jaguar added every conceivable option. Photos of this green interior were used in many sales brochures, like this one from 1988, for several years to come.

In January 2015 this car was offered for sale on eBay. Photos 1-6 are from that sale. They show the car in a rather sad state: Sic transit gloria mundi. Buyer was Chris Payne who intended the restore the car to its former glory. Unfortunately, life came in the way, and the following years the car stayed in an underground garage in London.

In May 2022 I was approached by magazine author Paul Guinness. He asked for a high resolution scan of the press photo, to go with an article that he intended to write for the Classic Car Weekly magazine, to cover the search for a new owner for the car. Eventually, the higher powers at CCW decided to allocate just a little space, and photo 15 shows the resulting article from the May 26th issue of the CCW magazine.

The new owner was David Taylor, participant in his family's wedding car business, where already more than a dozen DS420 cars, together with a large number of Vanden Plas, Rolls and Bentley cars earn their keep. Photos 16-21 show how the car was kissed awake at its underground parking place in London, and (photo 26) prepared for transport to its new home.

I was very pleased when David and his father Andrew took the car to the DS420 Owners' meeting in Gaydon, on May 14, 2023. Photos 27-32 were taken at this event.

And finally on photo 37: the car with its proud owner David at their home base.

1						5
6						10
11						15
16						20
21						25
26						30
31						35
36						37

Back to the list of albums or to the indexpage