Ain't It Marvellous!

EUC 100C – John Lennon's "Lost" White 1965 Phantom V Comes Out Of Hiding To Receive Honors From The International Rolls-Royce Community!
Guest blogger Eric Roberts reports

EUC 100C parked outside the Madingley Club, Twickenham, April 9, 1969

EUC 100C in the grounds of Burghley House, Stamford. Jody Klein
with Alan Hobbs and Johan Vanden Bergh, chairman of the RREC.
26 June 2016

Click on photos to enlarge

At last, after an absence of three decades, one of Rock 'n' Roll's most famous limousines has been immaculately and expensively restored by its current owner, Jody Klein, head of ABKCO Music and Records.

The majestic 1965 Phantom V, chassis number 5VD63, was revealed and much admired at this year's Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts' Club Annual Rally and Concours d'Elegance in the spectacular grounds of Burghley House in Lincolnshire over the weekend of June 24-26. The event is the largest and most prestigious gathering of Rolls-Royce and Bentley automobiles anywhere in the world. There could be no more suitable setting for the return of EUC 100C. 

Visitors to the marquee occupied by independent luxury car specialists, Rolls-Royce & Bentley Garages, were given a privileged, close-up viewing of a car that has had a long association with the film and music business. Established in 1984, RR&B Garages is one of only 30 accredited members of the exclusive Rolls-Royce and Bentley Specialists Association. Having garnered numerous awards for their concours restorations over the years, in 2008 the company based in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire was tasked with giving Jody Klein's white Phantom V a full ground up restoration. Under the leadership of senior technician, Alan Hobbs, and founder/managing director of RR&B, Ian Pinder, EUC 100C has been brought back to mint condition in every detail. 

On the last day of the rally at Burghley it was judged best in its category - the S type Cloud class, 1955-66. This was a fitting reward for the owner and his chosen team of automotive experts for their unstinting commitment to saving this historic limousine for posterity.

 

Alan Hobbs at the wheel of EUC 100C after receiving a Best in Class
and red rosette and trophy.

A whiter shade of pale. No expense was spared in recreating EUC 100C's
unique all white interior as originally specified by John Lennon.

The two chrome grills beneath the quad headlamps conceal twin speakers
linked to a PA system operated from the rear compartment.

Dumb and Dumber

Making a list was a Victorian-era parlor game, a way to fill the empty hours, a way to ward off boredom. As I’ve discussed before, there is a Puritanical motive for the making of lists, for the mental activity that determines the selection of a list is perversity (resistance, obstinacy). In other words, when faced with the choice of having something or nothing (even if that something is “just a little,” i.e., the Reality Principle), desire chooses something: perversely--out of necessity--it selects a single object of pleasure out of a vast number of possibilities: the rarified, fetishized object--one object charged with wondrous, excessive meaning. Each element of the set (the list) is like a game piece one must select before the game starts, the game being how to negotiate the operation of pleasure within a highly restricted economy premised on lack. (See the film A Christmas Story.)

If memory serves, lists used to be short. Now, lists are very long and hence have become dumber and dumber: instead of 10 items, for example, one can--perversely--list 11 (apparently some missed the joke in This is Spinal Tap) by using the alibi of the “tie”: two (presumably) rare and singular objects cannot, paradoxically, be sufficiently distinguished. Or, alternatively, you can choose to do what Rolling Stone magazine recently did with its list of the 50 Best Albums of 2015. Since critics do not want time--the final judge--to prove them wrong, their “Best Of” lists get longer and longer as a way to hedge their bets. The “50 Best” list also reveals the extent to which Rolling Stone has developed what might be called a homogeneous “house style,” because while no authorship is attributed to the piece and no single author could have possibly written all 50 entries, the style remains consistent throughout. So much for the critical acumen and perspective of an original, distinctive critic--this is a list by committee. Perhaps this list by committee suggests that with a large stable of writers, you have to keep them all busy, so the solution by the management is to order the list to be very long in order to give them all something to do. Of course, Rolling Stone is no different than any of the other powerful media institutions, which all feel compelled at this time of year to engage in some sort of tremendously dumb historical rundown.

Hence, one cannot avoid the connection between language and power. As Robert Christgau observed about 15 years ago, the idea of a rock canon is a complete absurdity. Still, the notion of a rock canon hangs on, a consequence of the powerful connection between music and memory. As he says, “Canonization is institutional. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a canonizing institution.” What was once a game played by the idle rich has become an instrument of institutional power, and as Christgau indicates, Rolling Stones uses its economic power to enforce a canon—as perverse as it is ludicrous. Once more, all the “Best of” lists being issued this time of year reveal how we live not in an age of axioms (universally accepted truths that are potentially falsifiable), but in an age of aphorisms (statements of personal taste).