Unmatched Rolls‑Royce and Bentley collection for sale

The 25 cars – plus a Merlin aero engine! – are all from the astonishing single-owner collection of the Liechtenstein lawyer and honorary consul, Norbert Seeger. Starting with a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud in the 1990s, Mr Seeger built up his collection to include some of the rarest and most acclaimed Rolls-Royce and Bentley models ever made. Housed in a purpose-built facility, the collection is said to include the world's only complete collection of all series of Rolls-Royce Phantoms. 

The rarest of all Phantoms is the Phantom IV of which only 18 were ever made, all snapped up by royalty and state leaders. The Phantom IV in the sale in the sale is the car Princess Margaret commissioned in 1954. It is a huge and glamorous HJ Mulliner-bodied limousine with unusually luxurious driving compartment – it is said the princess enjoyed driving it herself – and walnut veneered drinks cabinet. It is also unusual for the time in being automatic and among the very first cars with a phone, the equipment for which was said to take up half the boot.

Not surprisingly all this adds up to one of the stars of the collection that RM Sotheby’s will be selling in Liechtenstein. The auction is in June and will be a live event with limited, invitation-only audience.

RM Sotheby’s is billing the collection as representing “one man’s passion for the greatest in British luxury automobile manufacturing”. It is hard to argue against that. There is no shortage of star cars here, from the 1920s to the 2000s and studded with machines of the rich and famous. 

Cars like the 1933 Rolls-Royce Phantom II Special Town Car by Brewster, the most expensive automobile in the world at the time it was made. The one-off design, created for American millionaire Matthew Dick of Washington DC, is the first and only of the three special town cars built that still retains its original coachwork. It has only had five owners from new.

Other stand-out cars are the 1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom III four-door cabriolet by Voll & Ruhrbeck, and the 'Maharaja of Baroda' Bentley Mk VI drophead coupe from 1947. The post-war star car is likely to be a 1958 Bentley S1 Continental Cabriolet by Park Ward. Two of the most recent cars in the sale are a Rolls-Royce Phantom coupe and Bentley Brooklands, both from 2008. 

As you might imagine, all the cars are offered in exceptional condition. In Norbert Seeger’s museum in Liechtenstein, they all were carefully grouped as if in an art gallery. “It is one of the strong points of this collection,” says the collection’s owner. The sale will be taking place in the museum in June.

Images courtesy of RM Sotheby’s.