His first car, which will be auctioned off as Sir Michael Caine turns 90. When it goes up for auction at the end of March, the stunning 1968 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow convertible is expected to fetch between $100,000 and $150,000. It has undergone extensive restoration.
Since the late 1960s, when the car was first ordered, it has had a colorful past. In 1968, the 35-year-old Cockney entered a Rolls-Royce dealership in posh Mayfair, London, looking scruffy and wandering around with a handwritten shopping list, noting “milk, bread, cigarette, Rolls-Royce,” as you do.
The British icon ended up at the Dover St dealer in Haymarket after being expelled for not being appropriately presentable (or recognized), where he picked up the Silver Shadow, a playwright Sir Terence Rattigan’s cancelled order.
Oxfordshire’s 1st Choice Body and Car Works has restored the black convertible to its original color and retrimmed the gorgeous magnolia leather for a cool £80,000 (approximately). The car has only traveled about 59,000 miles and is one of only 506 handbuilt Silver Shadow Two-Door drophead coupes produced by Mulliner Park Ward, Rolls-Royce’s internal coachbuilder at the time.
It’s interesting to note that Caine bought the item without actually having a driver’s license. After the insurance provider declined to insure it as his set of training wheels, the actor eventually hired a chauffeur. The Oscar winner finally obtained his license at the age of 50 after moving to Los Angeles, but he later admitted in an interview that he had never been a very good driver because he struggled with concentration.
In 1970, Jack Leach, a renowned businessman best known for owning the infamously star-studded Chelsea nightclub The Gasworks, purchased the car from Caine. Before passing away in 2013, Leach would continue to own it for another 43 years.
The auction kicks off on 15 March at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
Source: topgear.com
