John Frankenheimer's 1965 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III - Jay Leno's Garage

you know there's an old saying that uh you look at a bentley but you look inside a roll you know and that's what happens when you have one of these people don't look at the car they see the car oh they want to see who's who's driving a car like that you know there is the tendency to sneer at lesser cars for example how the camera car pull up and i'll show you what typical rolls-royce driver would do welcome to that episode of jay leno's garage the vehicle featuring today 1965 rolls royce silver cloud 3 with an impeccable providence it is a one owner car it was donated to the peterson museum upon the death of the owner who was john frankenheimer the great director he did manchurian candidate did my favorite film grand prix and of course if you love the car scenes and ronin he was the ultimate car guy i remember i was sitting at uh cantor's deli on fairfax avenue once and i said oh that's frankenstein where he goes jay jay he runs over my table i got a six point nine i got to tell me all about it and it was great we had a great this guy he was a just a lovely guy and this car is interesting he was in france direct a movie called the train and he was a guy he was a a huge guy he had long arms so he had all his shirts custom made so he and his wife were on the way took the train i got from france to london to go to a shirt maker and they're walking down the street and they passed the rolls-royce dealership and they had a bentley in the rolls and he got in the bentley and the guy said he was a little tight in there there's a bit more room in the rolls he's not in the rolls royce and he bought it on the spot for cash and he gave it to his wife i think it was then wife he said it was a wedding present sadly he died in 2002 but kept this car this whole time and his wife continued to keep the car she donated to the peterson museum and you know he was an interesting guy uh he was one of those great directors and whenever he had a film shoot in another country or some place not his home base he would have the car shipped there and almost every famous movie star in the world certainly everyone who appeared in his films rode in this car because he brought it with him to all all the film sites then on june 6 1968 this car was parked at the ambassador hotel waiting for a young presidential candidate named robert f kennedy to get in the back seat and be whisked away and obviously we all know that never happened because he was assassinated on that day but this car was a piece of that history as well and his lovely wife who's still with us goes down the peterson and occasionally sits in the car and her initials are on here i'm not going to say her name or anything i don't want anybody to bother of it just a lovely person and it's just a great romantic story he bought this for her and kept it through their whole marriage and i don't know if this is original pain or not it's almost hard to believe it's so good it might be resprayed in certain areas i know the interior is 100 original it's only got 27 000 miles because as a film director you don't get a lot of free time to go out and drive but what free time he had he would use this to take friends and actors and other people in his movies to dinner and it's just a romantic vehicle and you know it drives wonderfully this is what people think of when they think of a rolls-royce i mean i've told this story a bunch of times in relation to other things but i'll tell in relation to for roles these are not expensive cars now they built probably i think about 2700 of them the whole run from let me see this the the v8s went from 59 to 65 the cloud series there are under a hundred thousand dollars of convertibles of course in multiples of a hundred thousand dollars two three four hundred thousand depending on condition and you see a lot of these in rather ragged shape and you can get them fairly cheaply our friends over at uh icon took one and put a big american v8 in it and you know it just made it an incredibly fast car we did a road test on it once it was a lot of fun but this is a car you drive swiftly you don't drive it fast you drive it swiftly the v8 puts out about 200 horsepower i think by 65 is probably up to 240 or 250 which was adequate it was an old-fashioned car even when new but even back in the day it was always impeccably put together impeccably engineered four-speed general motors high dramatic transmission 6.2 liter v8 originally these came with a straight six which a lot of people like better because they're incredibly smooth incredibly quiet and very easy to work on this v8 is kind of crammed in there even though it looks like a big wide car there's not a lot of room you actually have to jack it up remove the wheel to get to the spark plugs so it's it's a little bit more maintenance intensive but the extra horsepower 25 or 30 more than the six really makes a difference uh when you're driving it um anyway the story i was going to tell you was the buddy of mine bought one of these in very rough shape for about fifteen thousand dollars the mechanics are not complicated v8 general motors automatic transmission bulletproof rear end the real money in these is the interior getting the wood doing the paint the leather i mean you can spend 25 thousand dollars doing this interior easy just doing the leather and the seats and everything to that rolls-royce standard i believe rolls-royce has a book with exactly what type of wood and replacement wood available for every car so i was led to believe so it's interesting everything's available for these and as i said it looks like the classic rules right the story is a buddy of mine comes over here with this fifteen thousand dollar rolls he bought and hubcaps are missing in it and we tuned it up we got it running pretty smooth changed the plugs did all the other things all right let's take it around so i'm driving it and i go up here to the corner now i'm on that corner with everything from uh my bach mercedes bugattis lamborghinis the f1 mclaren everybody waves i pull up in this rolls royce guy gives me their finger because i look like they just look like a rich guy in a rolls royce it just made me laugh i mean i guess i'm a rich guy but i was in a somehow this made the guy angry because this looks like the landlord coming to collect the rent any movie where there's a bad guy whether it's goldfinger or whoever it might be they all seem to be driving this style of rules although the goldfinger one was from the 30s that was a wraith i believe because it looks like oh a rich guy's car you know modern rolls is sort of blend in a little a bit more they don't have this as i call it the grey poupon look to it you know so it has a stance it's quite comfortable yeah let's open the hood and show you what that v8 looks like the fun thing is there's no plastic on this everything is metal okay we go as you can see that's that's crammed in there now this does not look original this uh radiator certainly a cap is not uh this is aluminum that might be a replacement radiator so but there's no plastic in this thing everything is metal i love the oil filler cap down here look at this it looks like something from a steam ship you know you went across the atlantic be sure to change the oil they are just a big everything kind of clicks in and snaps in everything just everything is metal on this it hilarious is this yeah that's metal as well yeah not a lot of room as you can see and then you have to when i was a kid there was a famous ad of a diamond cutter in the back seat of a rolls royce and and one in the back seat of a ford ltd and you know which one is smoother riding and the guy cuts the diamond perfectly you know 25 thousand dollars something that you know across the classic hood ornament the flying lady a lot of people think these are silver they're not silver and you don't want to polish these too much because eventually all the sort of features wear off with them that's what they warn you about i believe this is german nickel i'm not i don't hold me to that when i was a kid i worked at a place called foreign motors on commonwealth avenue in boston and we used to service these and they would come in regularly in boston they were all what they call standover sable two shades of brown this combination a lot of black no reds no greens they were all sort of very conservative colors in fact we got a convertible in once that was red and it sat on the showroom floor for a year and a half and my boss said send it to california and it sold in two weeks so that shows you the difference i like it with black wall tires i think it looks a bit more proper and yeah there's a whole generation of guys meeting my generation because i obviously couldn't have afforded one of you this car was 19 900 something dollars when it was new which was unbelievable my parents paid 19 000 for their house in the 60s so well 1959 so that showed you how expensive this was but now the rolls royce club is really terrific because everything's available for these and like you can buy them fairly reasonable i know under a hundred thousand dollars doesn't seem reasonable but you certainly get a hundred thousand dollars worth of workmanship in these things uh the back seat is it's not overly roomy this is the normal short wheelbase but actually quite a comfortable place to be once you're inside you know when mercedes built their their 600 back in the early 60s they didn't like this listen [Music] just those heavy electric motors and they made the doors somewhat thick and the window couldn't go all the way down so they went with hydraulics which is as in typical german fashion incredibly expensive to do but uh so much more efficient quiet and but let's as it goes up and of course your trade tables you got to have these and close that this way you can do a bit of writing or write angry letters to the tenants i expect the rent on the first of the month if not you'll be evicted immediately thank you are onward johnson you know so uh but it's it's very nice back here and this is just the old school rolls royce don't forget rolls-royce was only about 50 years old this is halfway through their legacy so to speak uh the headliner all this i believe is original to the car and it's just just a wonderful wonderful little girl got speakers in the back for the radio you know things we take for granted now rear speakers and electric windows these those were a huge deal back in the day let me put that window on and see there you are look at that yeah i could get the full effect here yeah you know i don't even like gray poupon but you just feel like you want to eat it by the jar full when you're sitting back here and i'll show you the trunk so you can actually turn sideways and get out very gracefully you see fuel filler right here releases from inside that was another rich guy thing i just love no plastic everything is chrome i mean full-size trunk as you can see it goes quite far back and you've got spare tire and everything underneath there but nice sized trunk let's get behind the wheel the nice thing about this car is this was a driver's car this wasn't a chauffeur i mean you could be chauffeur driven if you wanted but this is for the owner driver uh which is what most of the customers were you know when you could afford something like this you want the pleasure of driving it and when i worked at the dealership i love to move these around the shop i love the thin steering wheel very simple this one has a modern radio in it i used to like the old radio phone or whatever the british version was it's got air conditioning these were old-fashioned cars by 65. cadillac was gaining ground and in some ways i always said the greatest car in the world was the 1949 cadillac because when rolls-royce was a six-cylinder with a manual shift roll-up windows and no power steering cadillac and 49 had overhead valves hydraulic lifters power windows air conditioning power steering power brake even a power top if it was electric and that was just an amazing automobile but these were all about build quality there was nothing built quite like a rules and they they run quiet and they run smooth and the leather and all that just just immaculate i went to the factory in england years ago and it's one of those things where uh actually it was it was in uh it was the bentley factory basically the same thing we go in they got that's where the bomb came through the roof in 41. then they show you the bomb still not quite fixed you know this is like early 70s and i see a woman with an ipad i love demi and she's got a big needle and thread and she's still without a seat right here we do a cup of tea and tea kettle's whistling she's got a coat on because there's no heat in the place i mean it was hilarious it was hilarious it's not that way anymore so luckily they've improved okay you've got all these little bitty doors in here but everything just fits nicely and of course your four-speed hydramatic transmission i think what they did was i think they took the general motors transmissions sort of rebuilt them their way just to make sure there was no leaks or gaps or anything like that there's a lot of rumors about this v8 a lot of people thought this v8 was a copy of an american v8 it was not they developed their own uh in fact they started working on it back in the late 40s early 50s uh and it was finally introduced in in 59. now this is their own v8 6.2 liter two valve they would never tell you the horsepower there was an adequate but i think it was 200 or two and a quarter something like that but more than enough to move it swiftly top speed on this car is probably 116 to 120 you don't want to go 120 of this no it gets a little dicey out there of course just a hand break by hand uh just a lot of things that had sort of bypassed them the the new shadow was coming out in 66 and it was a very nice car but it didn't have the prestige you know whenever you see like west palm beach florida or or uh beverly hills or especially like the beverly hillbillies or something rich people always drove these because it just it just looked like a rolls royce it looked like you know the banker coming around uh i see the air conditioning vents were integrated into the car which was uh something still fairly new in in in the mid 60s you know a lot of times you bought a a ford or a mustang in in this thing you got a big box air conditioner fit on the transmission tunnel here and it was sort of an aftermarket affair it wasn't built in that all came much later very comprehensive gauges you've got just miles per hour here there's no tachometer because it's a rolls royce and as i said this car car's one owner with 27 000 miles i mean if you're looking to buy a rolls royce you'd want one like this because most of these tended to be well taken care of you know this wasn't a car that people abused it was taken out for special occasions of course so many got hired in wedding cars and stuff over the years and a bit worn out but uh and you've got locking compartments here that's very rolls royce okay and these are adjustable you can move the rest up and down normally i would take this over next door and put up the lift but bernard's got his race bus up there he's doing something with the transmission so we'll take it for a ride let's see how she goes let's start it up you know driving one of these things it's just all about being comfortable and cruising along you know i just love gripping this thin steering wheel wheels now are so these big thick things you know it's just so nice it's so dry you sit up high i mean this is about as aerodynamic as a brick but it does it it wafts and if you look at that you're just wafting through the air you know you come to a corner if it says 35 miles an hour exit you're going 36. those tires are going to be screeched that's okay if it says 35 you're probably going 28 you know it really is like being in your library at home you know you've got this assuming if you have a car like this you have a library in your house i mean i love the wood even what 60 years later the smell of the leather is still still gets to you it is a bit like driving an suv is set up so high for example when you adjust the seat it's all you've got to pull a lever and move it there's no electric adjustment by 6566 cadillac imperial lincoln they all had the power seat that went every which way you know back in the day the europeans might have had the edge and handling and braking and things like that but we had the edge and comfort in terms of well like i said this is i'm sure this is probably general motors air conditioning unit and the hydromatic transmission but you can't fault how well it's made all the wood from the same matching tree all that kind of deal you know i love the fact that john went in and just bought it off the floor and has kept it all these years or his wife has kept it after he passed away when people see these they recognize it as something different something special in a lot of ways it looks like uh almost like a car from the late 40s in america you know big packards or any of those it was an old saying that you look at a bentley but you look inside of rolls you know and that's what happens when you have one of these people don't look at the car they see the car oh and then you want to see who's who's driving a car like that you know you know rolls-royce used to have an ad at 60 miles an hour the only noise you hear is the ticking of the clock in the dashboard i think that's a bit of an exaggeration but i guess there might be some truth to it but there's just something about this car that makes you drive it sedately you know i i'm enjoying this driving this car i feel like mr drysdale in the beverly hillbillies i know he drove an imperial drove at 67 imperial but that's what mr drysdale should have had when she hustles along rather nicely to 65 miles an hour and it's quiet in here not a lot of wind noise you have to allow for being you know 60 years old you're going to get some uh almost 6 years old some wind noise around the seals but i i don't hear it it's pretty quiet and the rolls-royce owner's manual it's not in this car but that's uh you know looks like something written by charles dickens you know beautiful leather-bound book just flips through the pages and yeah fantastic charles rolls and henry royce interesting characters uh something a lot of people don't know john rose is an aviator he was the first man in britain killed in an airplane uh first one to die in a plane uh especially a plane under its own power i think he died in 1910 and henry royce was i think he was electrician i hope i have my facts right here but one of those meticulous guys where everything had to be exactly perfect and when that silver ghost came out and what was it around six seven eight that hold it it truly was the best car in the world there was nothing better built nothing better manufactured ran quiet started that london to edinburgh around a thousand miles with the hood closed and there's so many sort of uh rumors about rolls royce uh i addressed the one about being a copy of the chevy engine that's a phony one then there they would say oh the hoods are sealed and can't be opened at the factory no that's not true but that started from i think the london to brighton london to edinburgh run where they sealed the hood for a thousand miles so you couldn't make any change of the modifications that shown the car would be dependable that's one uh the rolls-royce are guaranteed for life that's a no that's not true uh same guarantee as anybody else three years whatever um what's another rolls royce rumor oh the other one that uh when the badge used to be the rr used to be red and then they changed it to black it was supposed to be the day that henry rice died he did die that year but it was not to commemorate him they just thought the red was a bit garish for roses rather conservative customers so they went with black numerals black letters and it just happened to coincide with his death but no it was not uh not that at all everyone now and then you might hear somebody say uh oh my dad or somebody i know had a rolls-royce with a straight eight engine now they didn't make a straight engine but it's a military use i think the b80 bnb 81 uh i think that straight a was used in a couple of the really huge uh rolls royces you know for royalty the limousines only for the royal family the straight they never made a straight aid for civilian use although people have tracked down the rolls-royce straight a military engine and used it a number of specials you know for racing and things like that multiple carburetions and all that it's supposed to be quite good compared to cars of the period this was extremely quiet to modern cars now monaco you know modern south park have gotten so good that it's uh this wouldn't hold a candle to a modern roles or bentley or mercedes or any of those but back in the day this this was impressive actually still is and the new rolls-royce company has come back quite strong because by the time the 80s and early 90s came around rolls-royce was a bit hard-pressed to use that title the best car in the world mercedes uh certainly and plenty other marks could have captured that title easily so when uh when bmw took over rolls royce they really did an excellent job of uh of making it uh making what it should be there is the tendency to sneer at lesser cars for example i'll have the camera car pull up and i'll show you what typical rolls-royce driver would do there aren't a lot of cars that are fun to drive at you know at the speed limit you know you always want to go faster they're boring but this it just sort of drifts along and it you know it kind of lulls you there's no there's no uh cruise control there's none of those silly american things that we seem to like so much you know it's so english i remember when uh i was working at the uh dealership the world joyce dealership in 1969 as a kid and the corniche came out and had a very controversial head it was a red carnage had a police car behind her with the lights on there was an attractive woman seeing the pastor she's somewhat bemused by the fact that her rich boyfriend is being lectured by a policeman and he gives him a ticket for speeding in the carnation and the coronation was a two-door convertible it was the most expensive rolls royce you could buy at the time nine 29 dollars which just seemed crazy crazy and i remember people complaining no rolls-royce driving should not be speeding should not be given a ticket but they just wanted to get the point across this is kind of the rolls royce for their sporting guy willing to take a chance you know kind of very silly but i always remember that ad quite effective but if you like old school rolls-royces this is one i want to look for mid 60s silver cloud two or three it's not hard to fix you know it's it's it's points it's carburetors it's it's pretty straightforward if you're good at woodworking well that comes in handy you might want to refinish all this wood yourself but all the money really is restoring these is mostly cosmetics because the mechanicals are not crazy it's just straight mechanical stuff you know you blow a head gasket that's fine it's on the end of the world but ah damages wood oh my god trying to match it the grain and stain it exactly and that could be a nice one but the air conditioner very quiet i've got it on now it's about 85 degrees today here in l.a so just sort of waft along anyway i hope you enjoyed this bit of history on a great rolls royce owned by a great guy john frankenheimer i told you once again he and his wife they bought it new he gave her to us a wedding gift they stayed married the whole time until he died and she still owns the car uh it was donated to the peterson museum and they maintain it very nicely for her and do nice job and they're kind enough to let me borrow it so i was glad i got to know john a little bit he was a real car guy and i as i said he loved this thing he took it all over the world with him had his girl with him but what can you ask for you know got the great car you got the great wife life doesn't get any better than that i know because i got the same thing see you guys uh see you guys next week [Music] uh

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 431,882

Rating: 4.9589953 out of 5

Keywords: Jay, Lenos, Garage, John Frankenheimer, Rolls-Royce, Grand Prix, The Train, Petersen Automotive Museum, classic cars, car porn, 60s cars, luxury cars, bespoke cars, coach built, handcrafted, V8, Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, jay leno garage, jay lenos garage, car collection, cnbc, 1965 Rolls-Royce, Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III, Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud, John Frankenheimer's Rolls-Royce, rolls royce, classic car, jLG

Id: GBc2XxDkMuI

Length: 28min 20sec (1700 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 07 2021