Lennon car rolls into Royal B.C. Museum
John Lennon’s flower-emblazoned Rolls-Royce limousine was rolled off a flatbed truck, driven a short distance, and pushed into the lobby of the Royal B.C. Museum on Tuesday. The famous Phantom V touring limousine that once delivered the Beatles to Buckingham Palace in 1965 — the Fab Four received medals from the Queen — spat out plumes of white smoke as it was driven to the museum’s doors.
“It’s a canvas with a motor,” museum curator Lorne Hammond said of the 3,000-kilogram vehicle. “It’s a complicated thing to manage.” Regarded as a treasured piece of Beatles’ history and exhibited throughout North America for more than 20 years, the well-oiled machine will be displayed in the museum’s lobby until April 28.
Kasey Lee, conservation manager at the museum, said she barely slept Monday while going over the logistics of transporting the vehicle from a warehouse — in an undisclosed area in Greater Victoria — to the museum. The paint is fragile and any condensation would have played havoc with it. A tarp would scratch it. An accident would be disastrous. “It gives me more headaches than any other piece in our collection,” Lee said.
Object conservator George Field has the white-knuckle pressure of backing up the limousine with its opaque tinted windows and mirrors mounted on the hood. “I’m driving a piece of history,” Field said. “I know John Lennon sat behind the wheel and I know probably each of the Beatles touched the hood ornament.”
By: Cindy E. Harnett
Source: Times Colonist
