1966 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III Flying Spur Saloon (more photos ๐)
Just 49 Silver Cloud IIIs received the four-door Flying Spur coachwork by H.J. Mulliner, Park Ward, a body style that had originated on the Bentley S1 Continental in 1957 before being extended to the Rolls-Royce chassis following the Silver Cloud III’s introduction in 1963.
Of those 49, only a small number were built in left-hand drive, making this among the rarest configurations of an already scarce body style.
The Flying Spur four-door saloon added interior space and a proper trunk to the sporting character of the Continental, while sharing the Silver Cloud III’s revised front end with four headlamps in place of the earlier two-lamp arrangement.
A 6.2-liter OHV V8, fed by twin 2-inch SU carburetors and producing power that Rolls-Royce, in keeping with tradition, declined to officially specify (period estimates place output around 220 horsepower), drives through a GM Hydramatic four-speed automatic transmission.
The arrival of the unitary-construction Silver Shadow in 1965 brought the coachbuilt Silver Cloud chapter to a close, giving these late-production examples added historical weight as the last hand-built Rolls-Royces in the traditional sense.
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