Daredevil pilot’s Rolls Phantom ready to fly
David Berthon is a well-known Australian motoring journalist who has brought the National Motor Museum’s 1899 12hp Daimler, plus Golden Arrow and Bluebird Land Speed Record cars, to Australia for exhibition over the years. Now in semi-retirement, he enjoys taking the 1913 Rolls-royce London to Edinburgh Silver Ghost he restored to various car shows and concours events, where it has won some top prizes.
Berthon is now appealing for historical information about another project, a 1928 Rolls-royce Phantom I, chassis 10FH, with Hibbard & Darrin coachwork.
Thomas Hibbard, who had been working for Lebaron, moved to Paris and met Howard ‘Dutch’ Darrin. The duo joined forces and at first they were a main agent for Minerva, yet they also designed – but didn’t build – coachwork.
In 1926 they had the finances to buy new premises and become coachbuilders, crafting coachwork for top European and American manufacturers, including some 35 chassis for Rolls-royce.
This Phantom I was delivered new to Hibbard & Darrin, where it was fitted with grandly named ‘Imperial Cabriolet’ coachwork. The first owner was Carlos Bleck, a Portuguese pioneer aviator born in 1903, for whom 1928 was a busy year. He attempted to fly a Cirrus Moth from Portugal to India but came to grief in an Arabian desert; twice tried – and failed – to raise the money to fly the north Atlantic; represented Portugal at sailing in the ’28 Olympics in Amsterdam; and purchased the Rolls-royce.
After that the car’s history is unknown until it was bought from French dealer JF du Montant in 1997 by Jorge Fernandez, a Sydney collector with around 40 cars.
Fernandez died in 2019 and Berthon bought the car from his widow. It had never been registered in Australia and had come from France without the cabriolet roof, but was otherwise complete. It has been off the road for at least 23 years, perhaps many more.
“The quality of the body, its construction and fittings is first class and in remarkable condition,” says Berthon. “This is the only Hibbard & Darrin-bodied car in Australia and I am restoring it to a 95% standard because I want to enjoy driving this Rolls-royce.”
If you know any history, email david@dbenterprises.co