A sunny day in late autumn is something to treasure, so we took the chance to get the Rolls-Royce out and begin one of the jobs we'd been looking forward to for months: making it shiny. This should be the fun part, when we can put down the spanners and reach for microfibre towels and soft yellow dusters. After all, the car's original paint seemed to have survived very well under a peculiar pale coating that could be some form of surface oxidation, or perhaps a bloom of old wax reacting over years of slumber in the car's garage at Blenheim Palace. Whatever its origin, it came off remarkably easily with a bit of gentle rubbing.
So we thought we'd start the engine and drive outside. The car had been standing for a few weeks and needed a little while to pump sufficient petrol into the float chambers. When it did catch, it ran as smoothly as ever, so we stood and admired the high-idle set by the automatic choke mechanism. Then we noticed the stink of petrol and Findlay (my partner in this restoration) spotted a spreading
