rspann wrote:Mg, or anybody else , ever saw the Pre war Mercedes blocked up in a room?
It's a 1918 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost....extremely rare car. Some had wooden wheels, alluminum body, straight 6 side valve engine, stainless steel radiator top, grille...6volt electrical system. Only 7874 of them were made from 1907 with kerosene lamps and only rear mechanical brakes...til 1923 when they had electrical systems and 4 wheel power assisted brakes.
Allow me to tell you guys the story behind this car in Trinidad.
I had been told the story... (by Brij Maraj a collector i met a few days before a show \i helped put on in 2009 at Bhagwansinghs)... of a man who built a room around a Rolls to keep his sons from taking the MG TC that was parked NEXT to the Rolls to car shows...they would break the lock on the gate while he was away and sneak the MG to car shows...
So, he put the Rolls and the MG in the drawing room and BLOCKED them up entirely EXCEPT for a winding corridor just wide enough for you to pass SIDEWAYS almost to this TOMB where he had them...yup, the walls went right to the roof...NO WINDOWS.
So in November 2009 when i was working on foreign film shot here in Trinidad, I together with the guys from the TTV8CC, assembled about 100 Antiques and Classic cars at Bhagwansinghs Trinicity...when all of a sudden...
both Brij, Dereck Smith and few older heads came pulling me to meet MUGS...as he was called....HE CAME TO THE SHOW!!!
Some 6 years later, while hunting for another Rolls in the Tunapuna area, Derek asked me:
Wanna go see MUG's Rolls Royce? Oh yes I said...and he called him and even though Mugs wasnt feeling well...he has been recovering from a stroke, he let us in...he took me around to see his MANY other cars, from MG Sprites, to Singer Vogues, other Austins and a 37 Renault he was restoring...and Derek asked him to allow me to see the Rolls.
Of course I dared not even take a picture...as we got to the center of the house and through that corridor...there was the famous Silver Ghost. She was stripped down as it had caught fire some years ago...i saw the "lady" on the radiator tank, the wood wheels, the stainless steel headlight buckets and the car was LONG!
And right next to it was the TC..which he hid from his sons...
Brij told me some years ago, that while in Miami, he bounced up one of the sons...ol talking about the days when they used to sneak out with MG TC when their dad was away...and he told Brij that his other brother had just died of cancer and that he TOO was close to death as well....
What a sad story! That THE SONS he hid the car from for 20 years BOTH have died....
This is why I do the shows I do fellas...you might not believe it, but when I met Mugs...I KNEW i had to help change the MINDSET of the men with antiques and classics here in T&T....
Many in those early years...would blank me when I asked them to come to the show...some demanding that i PAY them just to come...and I would shake my head at the selfishness some displayed...because I had traveled all over and saw how WILLINGLY men brought their cars out from their garages just to share them with the younger generation.....at any and all occasions..whether big shows or small meets.
I have to say...we've come a long way.
here's a pic of a Silver Ghost like Mug's own and the MG TC that his sons used to sneak away with
and the MG TC
- imagesjh.jpg (8.48 KiB) Viewed 2939 times
