My 1909 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost

"We found it in 1958, 50 miles (80km) west of Charleville rusted out in a paddock," says owner David McPhee, 80, of Brisbane. My wife said to buy it for parts but when we discovered how old it was it became a project on its own. It cost 40 (about $64 in today's currency) and we thought that was too much."

McPhee won't say how much it's worth now, but Rollers of this vintage sell at auction for between $500,000 and $1 million.

The Derby-built 1100 series Silver Ghost, nicknamed "Quicksilver", is one of only 90 made. It is powered by a 7.5-litre, side-valve six-cylinder undersquare engine with 114mm by 120mm bore and stroke, one Rolls expanding carburettor and an output of about 35kW. Bosch electric start was fitted by the owner in 1920 because the big engine was too hard to crank start.

McPhee says the three-speed crashbox gearbox guarantees a top speed of 105km/h.

"For a 1990 motor car that's quite something," McPhee says.

Rolls used the same slow-revving engine from 1906 to 1926 with little modification. The former civil engineer has done most of the mechanical restoration work, including building an air fuel pump. When he rescued it from outback oblivion, the car had a rusted four-door body, its third round of coachwork.

McPhee's research found a Grosvenor two-seater body on a Rolls with chassis number 1126, just four more than his Roller, so he decided to replicate that body style. The coachwork was completed by a Gold Coast company in 1988.

Before that McPhee used to drive it up and down his semi-rural street with just the chassis.

"Without a body it went like a bloody rocket," he says.

The body is made of aluminium, steel kauri wood from brewery beer barrels and it rides on metal leaf springs with drum brakes only on the rear wheels. Although it has primitive mechanicals, there is remarkably little changed from current cars with the same arrangements of pedals.

However, cold-starting the antique machine is a process that takes time and patience. Before the driver gets in, they turn on the master switch on the battery located on the right-hand running board, then switch on the fuel cock behind the spare wheel. The driver gets in through the left-hand door because there is no right door as access is barred by the handbrake and gear shift.

Once inside, the driver selects a rich fuel mixture on a control on the footwell, works a device like a bicycle pump to prime the fuel pump, turns on the magneto, coil and battery, retards the spark on a steering-wheel-mounted control, sets the governor control on the other side of the steering wheel to a fast idle and then either gets a friend to manually crank the vehicle from the front or hits the starter button.

"It's a reliable system," says McPhee.

True to his word, it springs into life immediately and purrs as quietly and smoothly as many of today's modern engines. Its muted rumblings are further dampened by the complex exhaust system which includes a large primary expansion chamber between the header pipes and the muffler. McPhee says he takes the car for regular runs and drove it from the top to the bottom of the British Isles in 2007.
He claims he get about 17.6 litres per 100km, thanks to the 1740kg "lightweight" body and short chassis.

* You can see McPhee's Roller at the Speed + Style + Beauty classic car show from January 12 to 16 at the old Metro Ford site in Ann St, Fortitude Valley.