As with the cars built at Derby, the majority of the American Rolls-Royce Silver Ghosts produced in Springfield, Massachusetts, carried closed coachwork that was heavy and formal, albeit beautifully constructed and finely detailed. Lightweight sporting bodies for the Silver Ghost were rare indeed, but they did exist. Most prominent was the Piccadilly Roadster. One hundred and five examples of the Piccadilly were produced for Springfield Silver Ghosts, followed by another 45 on the successor Phantom I chassis.

The Piccadilly was initially produced, under the company’s in-house Rolls-Royce Custom Coach Work label, by Willoughby of New York, before being transferred fairly early in its offering to the Massachusetts firm of Merrimac. Chassis number 318XH, shown here, is a very early Merrimac-bodied Piccadilly, body number M583, and may in fact have been the first built.

The car was delivered in July of 1923 to Edward D. Gaither of Cincinnati, Ohio, among the most fascinating individuals to purchase a Springfield Rolls-Royce. A pioneering Black businessman in Cincinnati, Mr. Gaither made his fortune in sporting entertainments, including boxing promotion and ownership of a saloon, pool room, and movie theater. In the 1920s he constructed the Elmstead Country Club near Loveland, Ohio, which became a center of nightlife for Cincinnati’s most prominent Black citizens. Mr. Gaither was a somewhat flamboyant figure and unafraid to demonstrate his wealth. When he returned from honeymooning in Europe in 1913, he brought a Rolls-Royce with him—presumably the first of several to grace his carriage house.

When Mr. Gaither parted with 318XH is not known. It reappeared in 1958 in the renowned early collection of Richard C. Paine, Jr., on Mount Desert Island, Maine. After several years Mr. Paine sold the car in 1961 to another pioneering enthusiast, longtime Classic Car Club of America stalwart Sidney Hughes of Essexville, Michigan, who would retain it for over 30 years.

In 2000 the Piccadilly was purchased by Rolls-Royce collector Albert Storace. The car had been damaged in a garage fire and was very nicely restored in Mr. Storace’s care, with cosmetic work by Jim Hery of Pennsylvania, and some mechanical work by the noted Bill Cooke and Pierce Reid of the Vintage Garage in Vermont. At completion the car was awarded a 1st Prize in the Late Ghost Concours class at the RROC Annual Meet in 2005. Two years later it was sold to John and Nancy Kendall of Massachusetts, then in 2016 to a Pacific Northwest enthusiast, from whom Ray and Bonnie Kinney acquired it in 2018.

With its restoration well-preserved in the Kinneys’ ownership, this remains an excellent example of the American Silver Ghost, in one of its sportiest guises—with a rich and fascinating history, with interesting personages from start to finish!