Footnotes

• Built by General Motors' Canadian subsidiary, McLaughlin, this right-hand drive Buick Model 496 Tourer is one of only two such cars built in the second half of 1927 for the 1928 model year, both of which were used for HRH the Prince of Wales' Ceremonial Tour of Canada in 1927. The Prince, later Edward VIII, toured the Dominion with his brother Prince George, later the Duke of Kent. It is not known precisely when the car came to the UK, though the accompanying buff logbook states that it was first registered in March 1933.
  
  The vendor, a motor engineer knowledgeable about pre-1940 cars, first became acquainted with the Buick in the early 1960s when it belonged to Messrs Cyril Piggott and Geoffrey Callow. They had bought it in 1962 from a Mr Visick who ran Midhurst Engineering, a vehicle repair company. Midhurst had bought the car in 1962 from a Mr Holtby, an executive of the Standard Bank of South Africa who had a summer home in Sussex and had imported it for his personal use when in the UK. In need of a recovery vehicle, Midhurst removed the hood and the rear seats, braced the chassis and mounted a crane. For the next 25 years (1936-1962) the Buick served as Midhurst's recovery truck (untaxed and on trade plates), being kept under cover and used infrequently, hence its low mileage of only 36,474. The vendor was promised first refusal should the Buick ever be sold, and in 1992 was able to acquire the car, which was in need of full restoration. A quantity of spares was obtained in Surrey, and the vendor spent the next three years carrying out a total restoration to original specification.
  
  Enquiries at the National Motor Museum's library elicited the information that only two Model 28.496 cars were built. In 1998 the vendor obtained a copy of Heather Robertson's book 'Driving Force: The McLaughlin Family and the Age of the Car', which on its front cover depicts an identical 1928-model Buick tourer. He and his wife then visited the National Museum of Science & Technology in Ottawa, Canada, where the front-cover car is on display. Mr David Monaghan, Curator of the Museum's Land Transportation section, confirmed that the vendor's is the other 1927 Royal Tour car. Too lengthy to reproduce here, the vendor's account of his car's history is on file, viewing is highly recommended.
  
  Finished in cream with tan interior, this rare and historic Buick is described as in generally very good condition and offered with assorted correspondence, old-style logbook, Swansea V5 and a copy of one of its trade plate documents.

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Category: Motoring / Motor Cars

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