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No one here has enough money to work on one…….buy one, yes. Make it go down the road? No way. Besides, 99 percent of them are as unattractive as AJ’s high school girlfriend!
I have driven and played with this one a bit…….last two owners were friends. It’s what we call in the hobby………”A big bitch!”
Ed:
Please give us your unvarnished views of the V-12 engine and other aspects of the series.
Steve
Ed, you may be a car savant, but you are otherwise a nitwit.
My high school girlfriend was a knockout.
I’ll find some content out of this thread. There are some decent looking cars.
Apr 26, 2022Ed, you may be a car savant, but you are otherwise a nitwit.
My high school girlfriend was a knockout?
Your wife tells me she was such a dog she had a collar and leash. Why don’t you ask her opinion about the whole situation again!
By the way, you hit it out of the park with the Mrs., how she puts up with you is beyond me.
Apr 26, 2022Ed:
Please give us your unvarnished views of the V-12 engine and other aspects of the series.
Steve
They are just plain too much work. Add to it every half assed tractor mechanic has worked on them. They just shout “no joy”. They are quite the piece of engineering……..and five times the work of a PI. Large, underpowered, complicated,expensive, and no one wants to work on them…..even the experts.
Here is what AJ remembers in his mind……..………and an actual photo. AJ keeps telling me she wasn’t so baaaad! He insists she was the prettiest one in the herd.
You know me well enough to know I like both goats and blondes.
Matt's comment on the nuclear reactor is the funnies thing he has ever said.
This one the RR class at Pebble in 2019. It was very cool.
This one's for sale not too far from Ed. Nice for a sedan and decent pedigree....
The biggest issue with the P III engine is that everything is aluminum. It's an old fashioned design with seperate heads, blocks, and crankcase - all in aluminum. The heads are hard to get off (steel studs) and then the aluminum blocks have wet liner cylinders. Remember in the 1930's aluminum castings weren't what they are today. The carburator is similar to a Stromburg EE3, but the Rolls engineers made it twice as complicated with extra linkages and several extra drain/vent tubes all over the place. The pot metal castings go bad & you can send your carb off to have your linkage installed on new catsings for around $3600. That was the price 15 years ago. The main timing gear is a fiber gear and they were reproduced @ $400 each 25 years ago. The P III Technical Society (part of the Rolls Club) has all the tools needed to disassemble the engine which you can rent. They have a jig you put on the heads to remove them. I think they did a run of new cylinder heads 20 years ago and they sold out. You need a special tool just to remove a brake drum on a P III. In all they have something like 15-20 tools you can rent to work on the chassis. The waterpump is aluminim. How fun do think that is to take apart? Bob Shaffner of Mechanicsburg, PA was a big time P III guy, and he passed away 10 years ago. Wally Donaghue in MI could work on P IIIs, but he passed away a couple years ago as well. He wrote an article on P IIIs for The Classic Car about 5 years ago. L'Cars Automotive Specialties of Wisconsin works on P IIIs, but the website says since 1978, so he's getting older too. The P III chassis makes a Packard Twelve or Lincoln K look like they're one step above a Model A Ford. It truly is the engineering masterpiece of the 1930s. The early ones had a complicated hydraulic value mechanism but most were updated to solid tappets. The later ones had an overdrive transmission available. They ran hot here in the US as they were built for the balmy English climate. They all have a cast aluminum firewall. The only post 1930 American car with that was a Duesenberg. There is nothing cheap on a P III. It's overbuilt. They have built in hydraulic jacks at each corner of the car to jack it up to change a tire. Front suspension is independent with coil springs. Also, the engine was designed to run on a level surface, but when installed in the chassis the front is a little higher than the rear, and they had some oil drainage issues. I believe there's a fix for that with blocking one of the oil drain holes at the rear of each head & drilling one hole in the front a little bigger. As with all pre war Rolls cars, all of the coachwork is full custom. There were a few styles by Barker, Hooper, Mulliner & the like done in series which may have been a little cheaper like Ed mentioned, but there's some pretty spectacular bodies out there too. Yes, Hooper built some ugly limousines. But not all P IIIs are ugly. I'd say about 1/4 are ugly, 1/2 are average. and 1/4 are great looking. They are all on a 142" wheelbase. They are proportioned well & don't look as big as they are. There's only a couple guys who have all the spare P III parts, & they aren't cheap. If you have unlimited time, patience, skill, and money, you can handle a P III. Unfortunately, most of us don't. My best advice to anyone thinking of buying a P III would be to buy a Packard Twelve instead.
Well done Jason!
K8096:
Thanks for your in-depth description of the problems inherent in dealing with a Phantom III. I recall The Classic Car Phantom III article of some years ago. My impression was they were excessively complicated, even for a Rolls-Royce. Reading other sources, the V-12 was developed beginning during 1932 in response to the multi-cylinder trend then current and to include updates to the chassis to accommodate technological advancements. Of the latter, independent front suspension, teamed with moving the engine and radiator forward of the front axle plane allowed more chassis space for passenger accommodating coachwork on an eight-inch shorter wheelbase versus the Phantom II. The changed chassis proportions did diminish the aesthetic magnificence inherent in the Phantom II. Carried over coachwork styles don't work as well with the blunt, tall frontal aspect and relatively short-appearing hood.
Steve
I talked about this one in another thread somewhere. It is a Franay bodied PIII that was the Paris Salon show car. It was in a private collection for decades and recently sold. I assume being restored for Pebble. A fantastic car.
Apr 26, 2022I noticed we didn't have a dedicated topic for the Phantom III.
Steve, I just had not gotten around to it. It is interesting which ones of these threads have the most traction. The American Rolls thread and the Stearns thread seem to be very active.
Maybe the most attractive PIII? Brewster bodied Henley. Only one to my knowledge. I have a picture of it at Pebble a few years ago restored that I will try to find.
AJ:
That Franay sport sedan is one of the best ever mounted on a Phantom III chassis. But I can't help but imagine how much better it would look on a Phantom II chassis.
BTW, do you recall a Phantom III sport sedan by Henri Binder for sale at Hershey some years ago?
Steve
Apr 27, 2022AJ:
That Franay sport sedan is one of the best ever mounted on a Phantom III chassis. But I can't help but imagine how much better it would look on a Phantom II chassis.
BTW, do you recall a Phantom III sport sedan by Henri Binder for sale at Hershey some years ago?
Steve
Steve, agreed on the Franay. I really liked it but alas, I'm not a Billionaire which is what I think you need to be to restore that car.
Is this the Binder bodied car you were thinking of?
Apr 27, 2022Steve, I just had not gotten around to it. It is interesting which ones of these threads have the most traction. The American Rolls thread and the Stearns thread seem to be very active.
AJ:
I thought to start this thread after that '36 Phantom III in Texas turned up for sale. The warning comments sent me to search for more perspective on the series. Its true, certain threads engender more active participation than others. The F.R.P-Porter thread is another fascinating topic, thanks for starting it.
Steve