Vortex O'Plinth wrote: ↑Thu Nov 28, 2019 1:06 pm
Barrie wrote: ↑Thu Nov 28, 2019 12:42 pm
4 I don’t quite know what to say about this. It would be nice if it had survived as a one-off but I’m not surprised there was no demand for it. How did Hooper go from the 2 door Empress to this? Does anyone have pictures of the interior?
Only picture I could find certainly links the car to its SP250 origins - the dash seems to be a straight copy....
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As an aside, this shot shows that Royalty still favoured Daimler in the 1950's...
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Good grief! I'd never seen a picture of the rear of the SP250 Hooper before and I can see why no one would want to boast about it. And if the interior's the same as the standard car then what's the point. Actually, upon examining the two photos I see that the front seats are standard SP250 but the rears look as if they are from one of their limousines. Talk about a mismatch! Hooper had really lost their way. Their last car was a 1959 S2 Bentley Continental. The body here:
was somewhat similar to the Daimler Continental here:
but not very impressive in the flesh when I saw it. The dashboard looked as though someone has thrown all the instruments in the air and positioned them where they landed.
Nothing apart from the ashtray is central and there are uneven distances and angles between the small instruments. I suppose this may be the client's requirements but still, it's a horrible swan song compared this beautiful previous example.
The other picture looks as if it's a 3litre Hooper and is a delightful family picture (in happier times?). Note the white/light steering wheel. Years ago there used to be a father and son team that attended rallies with their velvet green 3litre Empress that used to belong to the Queen Mother. It was in beautiful condition and they looked after it like a baby. I wonder if it's the same car?