3669cc Inline 6 Cylinder
4 Speed Manual Synchros on 3 & 4
Front Engined Rear Wheel Drive
Servo Assisted Mechanical 4 Wheel Drum Brakes
65 bhp
Exterior Blue and Black Interior Blue
The Rolls Royce 20/25 HP was Rolls Royce’s second variant of the “Small Horsepower” car, replacing the 20HP, and provided a more economical entry into the market than the contemporary, and frequently larger, Rolls Royce 40/50 HP Phantoms. At the time The United Kingdom taxed engines on their “taxable Horsepower” which was derived directly from engine displacement rather than actual performance. Because of this, many British cars of this era were named after their taxable horsepower outputs. Before World War 2, every Rolls Royce and Bentley car was coach built, with Rolls Royce providing a rolling chassis with the complete drivetrain, radiator shell, and some components to a coachbuilder who built a bespoke body on the car, often built to a future owner’s preferences. Though multiple cars may be built off a single general design, details would often vary from car to car, and some cars were truly unique one-off designs. Even in modern traffic, these cars are capable performers. Although the brakes are mechanical, there is a Hispano-Suiza licensed brake booster/servo that is integral to the transmission that provides an increase in braking force, based on the speed of the car. This generally works very well and makes the brakes surprisingly responsive for the era. It
only fails to live up to expectations when stopping on steep descents, where speed is lower but the required braking force is higher than on the flat. Otherwise, it accelerates reasonably, though a bit slower than many modern cars, and is certainly capable of going a sustained 65-70 miles an hour. The only other issue with driving itis the gear shift, which only has a synchro on the top two gears, making it necessary to double-clutch on 1-2 shifts or skip gears. This Example is possibly a unique body as I have been unable to locate any others that look similar and is a rarer example in that it was clearly intended to be an owner-driven car, with the body design favoring the front seats over the back. The rear mounted spare is under a hinged aluminum cover and the boot is only accessible by folding the rear seat forward. The trafficators are also unusual and something I’ve only seen rarely and only on other Hooper-built cars of this era. They consist of a vacuum-operated mechanism at the top of the roof which slides a cylindrical lamp assembly out, with three festoon bulbs inside of an originally transparent red bakelite tube, which lights up when it is fully extended.
