Peter Byrne – History

More than 40 years of buying and selling rare and unusual classic cars.

The pictures are of a Bentley Speed Six replica commissioned in 1999. The Rolls-Royce Phantom I has a replica Barker open tourer body by Horsfield. In a previous incarnation it was the armoured car in the film Lawrence of Arabia. It is now in the Rolls Royce museum in Dornbirn Austria www.rolls-royce-museum.at.

The superb red Jonhard Donington Bentley Mark V1 Special with a V8 S2 engine, now in Japan, came from Elton John’s collection, as did the midnight blue Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III saloon ‘Daisy’ which was sold by Christies in 2001 for a world record price of nearly £90,000. I bought it in 2004 and subsequently resold it. As for the silver C-type Jaguar Proteus aluminium car well that is one I wish I’d kept.

The silver and blue Bentley, a car that I have owned twice is now in Italy. It is a Mark V1 fastback by Mulliner and was the first fastback made and the precursor to the R type and S1 fastbacks or slipper backs as the were originally known. The main picture is of a Ferrari 250 GTO one of Favre’s last cars and sold by me. The shell grey Bentley fastback is a car I sold a couple of years ago. The picture was taken on the Dutch/Belgian border and is one of my all time favourite photos. The first fastback I sold was in 1986 and it made £10,550. Ten years earlier I was selling Ferrari Dino 246 GTs for £3,000. They were never easy sellers then because people thought they were too expensive! The Bentley S1 Continental Park Ward drop head I sold in 1995 and has since tripled in value. It is now in the Geneva Motor Museum.

PETER BYRNE