Downing Street 10 motoring Mysteries (a far out adventure with RR Silver Ghost Limousine by Hooper)

Thank you all for your researches. I have several pictures of AJB in his motor coat and cap - and I also have a 3' bronze of him in same in case any of you would like a photo of it - but trying to identify what cars he is seen in front of has proved difficult. There is a 1902 Tatler talking about him and racing Mercedes but it reads as though the car wasn't his. I am not having much luck with Kevin Atkinson's link though. Do keep me posted if any of you find anything further. The internet is just brilliant for all this! Rod Balfour

#43KG 1922 Silver Ghost Hooper Open Drive Limousine Haynes Motor Museum

You might notice the car in question has round tipped front fenders and the one Mr. Murray shows has squared off fenders. So, I think John Pierson is right. They are not the same car.

Let me amplify my original response. Balfour would have started living at Downing Street almost the day he became First Lord of the Treasury at the end of July 1902; nowadays, we give the First Lord the formal title of Prime Minister, but in Balfour's day, the term was only informal. The article in "The Autocar"for 26 July 1902 was entitled "Balfour's new car". In other words, he acquired a new car around July 1902, and he entered Downing Street to live at about the same time. It seems more accurate, then, to say that the cars owned by Balfour when he was actually Prime Minister (not a future Prime Minister) included the Napier (possibly as his only car at the time) and given that it was his latest acquisition, it would seem likely that that is what he showed off to the public. Whether it was truly the first car to enter Downing Street we shall never know. Downing Street was completely open in those days (although a cul-de-sac as it is now) and anybody could have poked their car's nose into the street before mid-1902. As a Cabinet Minister, Balfour could easily have been dropped off there. The size of the car would have been in the eye of the beholder. My quotation of "a large machine of the road racing type" was from The Hackney Express, etc., also dated 26 July 1902. All the evidence tends to suggest that Balfour's latest car purchase was well advertised, and it coincides almost to the day that he must have entered Downing Street to live.

Does anyone know the chassis number of the car Ian Murray refers to? And what is the evidence that connects Stanley Baldwin to it? I have checked the indices in my reference books, but have not found Baldwin listed. When I googled Stanley Baldwin's car I got a nice video of an Austin (I think - definitely not a Rolls) but no mentions of Silver Ghosts. Another point I must make is that the rear side window of Mr Murray's car as it is today looks much larger than the window of the car outside 10 Downing Street. Has anyone looked at the photo of Lloyd George's car in "The Edwardian Rolls-Royce"? I still think that is a good match.

The car Ian Murray refers to was also used in the filming of Poirot, I have driven that car & it was in need of a mechanical overhaul at that time, there was some speculation about it being Stanley Baldwins car or Emperor Hirohito car, possibly a body change, ?.

PS. On second thought the car with Balfour standing next to on the photo I downloaded is not his 1901 Panhard & Levassor but again the Daimler, of which a picture is shown in the article mentioned by Kevin Atkinson. Watch his coat! http://www.prewarcar.com/prewar-my-prewarcar/spot-a-pre-war-car/mr-balfour-1901-panhard-et-levassor-026193.html

Between the 1900 De Dion voiturette and the 1902 Napier he also owned a 1901 Panhard, which was delivered to him by Jarrott. I uploaded the image of Balfour standing next to his 1901 Panhard as well as the Autocar picture of his 1902 Napier. Both cars were not very large by the way. The top on the Napier was to protect passengers from dust!

Balfour was Prime Minister from July 1902 to December 1905. At least one of the pictures of Balfour in 1902 with "his" car is, in fact, a picture of Balfour beside John Douglas-Scott-Montagu's 24 hp Daimler (the car in Kevin Atkinson's reference), taken in May 1902. There should be pictures of Balfour and his "huge machine of the road racing type" in issues of The Autocar for 26 July 1902, p.82, and 13 December 1902, p.620, but I don't have access to The Autocar archives. Perhaps someone does. A contemporary Punch cartoon mentions that Balfour's chauffeur was twice convicted of speeding, possibly with the encouragement of Balfour himself. It would seem that Balfour probably too the Napier to Downing Street in 1902. As for the car your picture of Downing Street, it would seem to be a Silver Ghost. Lloyd George's would fit the bill. However, a more salacious possibility is that it is the car used to take out Lloyd George's predecessor, Asquith, with his mistress. He was well known for his afternoon jaunts. Pity we can't interview the chauffeur. Asquith probably went out in something grand, but there is no evidence whatsoever that it was a Ghost. It clould also have been someone else's car entirely. Lovely to see Downing Street being properly lived in, with the sash windows up. I remember going past many times as a student, when access to Downing Street was completely open.

I think this is a car which appeared on Prewarcar for sale around 10 years ago!
That car was Stanley Baldwin's, open drive, Hooper bodied Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. It was also used in the 1970s in the filming of Brideshead Revisited.
I flew down to Birmingham to look at this car when it was for sale. It was very tired and had been messed about with. At one point on the test drive we stopped at a bus stop. I wanted to take some photographs, so threw off my old Barbour jacket and clicked away on the camera. There were one or two people waiting at the bus stop. We jumped into the car, drove for 15 minutes through Birmingham before I realised that I'd left my jacket at the bus-stop. I tried not to panic, we turned around and retraced our journey. The jacket was still exactly where I left it, and the £140,000 in cash was still in the pockets! That's why I remember Stanley Baldwin's Silver Ghost!

Arthur Balfour was the first Prime Minister to own a motor car a 1901 De Dion-Bouton Voiturette
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bitetheballot/8-things-you-ought-to-know-about-uk-prime-minister-so9j

http://ctgpublishing.com/arthur-balfour-prime-minister-of-england-uk-with-his-car-in-1902/arthur-balfour-prime-minister-of-england-with-his-car-circa-1902/
S

David Lloyd George was the British Prime Minister from 1916 to 1922 and owned the 1914 Barker Landaulette on Rolls-Royce chassis 53EB. The car's first owner was Lord Kitchener. There are pictures of the car on page 728 of "The Edwardian Rolls-Royce" which look similar to your picture. The Edwardian Rolls-Royce says the car was broken up in 1950.

I cannot claim authorship for this- the text comes from http://www.rvondeh.dircon.co.uk/vehicles/balfour.html where there is a wonderful article on Balfour and his cars

His first vehicle, acquired in 1900, was a little De Dion “whose four occupants sat facing each other round the steering handle, exposed to wind and weather.” It often broke down, but Balfour still used it to travel to important appointments, even when it meant replacing the constantly dying head-lamps on a dark windy October evening with a large stable lantern, which he waved about from his seat beside the chauffeur all the way to Edinburgh in Scotland.

In July 1902 Balfour took delivery of a new car – the 9 hp Napier which he had ordered at the Crystal Palace Show in April 1902. At his request it was fitted with larger tyres (120 mm instead of the usual 90 mm) and, specially made to his design, the rear portion which could be removed when necessary, “thus leaving plenty of room for luggage.”


When the 80-year old Balfour finally retired from politics in 1928, his friends of all political parties presented him with a brand new Rolls-Royce car – an eloquent tribute to his love of automobiles and of his achievements in promoting the industry.