John D. Parker III is pictured at the August 2026 Vermont Antique and Classic Car Meet in his 1921 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Tourer. He has attended the show a number of times with this vehicle. John has been a VAE member since 1954 and resides in North Stonington, Connecticut. This Rolls-Royce has been driven over 200,000 miles!
Back Story: Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost #83AG was built in Britain but sold new in USA in 1921 to Mr. Coe of Long Island and New York City. Originally ordered as a limousine, Mr. Coe decided on a six-light saloon (British for a four-door sedan). The car arrived in USA on 9/30/1921. Mr. Coe used the car regularly until 1928 when he acquired a new model, a 1928 Springfield Rolls-Royce Phantom 1. He gave the Ghost to his garageman, who decided to make the car over to a caravan/camper. The work was interrupted by the 1929 crash, which also killed his business. He pushed the chassis out back of the garage where it lay in the weeds until 1964 when Silver Ghost enthusiasts rescued the remains. He eventually sold it to Dr. John Goodman to be used as a parts car for his two 1913 Ghosts.
Front Story: During a gathering of car friends at John Goodman’s Garage, I saw two chassis, one on top of the other. The top one got my attention. The bottom one was newer, having four-wheel brakes and other updates. John would not part with either one of them. But with my persistence and willingness to do him a big favor, he let me have the top chassis: #83AG. Actually, he gave it to me, but to make it legal, I had to pay him $1 (and other considerations as the deed reads). The real price was $1200, which was a number of boxes containing rare, impossible-to-find parts. The other chassis, #27TM, went to Adrian West of Morrisville and now belongs to Pierce Reid of Stowe.
83AG sat in my garage for four years for research and development and a promise to finish the upstairs of the house first! At that point the car was disassembled, what there was of it. The frame was cleaned, painted, and hung like a ladder in the garage. This gave me room to work on the chassis components. There was not a lot of wear on the suspension, but rotating parts needed a lot of attention once they were rebored, rebearinged, adjusted and set right. They were painted, cataloged and hung away.
The engine was then addressed. It needed everything! It was degreased, cleaned up, and all parts inspected. The bores were clean and round meaning we could still use the original pistons. The shaft was line bored, and all new babbit for mains and rods. The valve lifting gear and system needed much work – there were so many bits! But all the bits were not with the engine. There was no water plumbing. The outside oil pipes were also missing. We had to make all this stuff from scratch. This meant wooden patterns, special castings, and line boring the exit water pipe to the radiator, which wasn’t done yet. This went together with the vertical outlets from the top of the blocks – two of them were needed and I had only one. With many letters and phone calls, I was put in touch with Gordon Morris in Upstate New York. He had three blocks; two were a pair in decent shape, but he wouldn’t break up the pair. The third one was probably ok, but very rusty. Hobson’s Choice: I took the rusty one. When I got it home, I sat it on top of the crankcase just behind the one I had. Something caught my eye – the rust pattern and scuff scratches were nearly identical to those on the front block! Further investigation satisfied me that this block was indeed from my car, but how it got to where it was was anyone’s guess.
At last came the exciting time of assembly. The various pieces went together fairly easily except for one thing – a radiator, didn’t have one. Rescued again by providence, this time by my late friend Curtis L. Blake, co-founder of Friendly’s Ice Cream. He had just acquired a 1913 Silver Ghost out of Nirobi. He intended to recoach the chassis with a replica body trimmed all in brass, including the radiator. He gave me his that came with the chassis. It’s low profile provided the height of the yet- to-be-built body.
The body was a product of one line drawing, several sketches, and a good imagination. Framed in red oak, the body took shape pretty much as you can see in the accompanying pictures. The frame is covered with aluminum, cut from cardboard cut-and-paste patterns and hand-formed over the wood. The fenders were made professionally following my design. Making the top was a trial and error exercise lasting 3 weeks, but that is another story. When it was finished in 1980, it appeared as you see it on the cover. The car has been driven a little over 200,000 miles on sheer joy, outside of a few mechanical interruptions. It is no longer the pristine 100 pointer but still cuts a nice presentation everywhere it goes.
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