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. According to factory records, our Rolls Royce 20/25 was coachbuilt by Hooper and was ordered by Sir Abe Bailey, a South African diamond tycoon and, at the time, one of the wealthiest men in the world. On delivery, it was gifted when new to Violet Cressy-Marcks (nee Fisher) and Edwin Fisher as a wedding present. Violet Cressy-Marcks was a member of the Royal Geographer’s Society in her own right, having circumnavigated the globe 8 times, writing books about travelling up the Amazon and over the Andes and travelling in China. She also worked as a war reporter for the Daily Express during World War 2, interviewing Mao Zedong. In her travels she met the Woodard family and in 1960, gifted them the Rolls Royce to use at the Village Green Hotel they built in Cottage Grove, Oregon near the then-new Interstate 5. I purchased the Rolls Royce from the Woodard family in 2017, as the third owner in its then - 84 year lifespan. When I purchased the car, it was in mechanically fine shape and ran and drove as it should, but had suffered, particularly on the interior, from time and use, with the original leather on the seats having torn badly and the stuffing for the cushions breaking down, as well as some moth damage to the wool of the carpets and headliner. Structurally, the car is still sound with no evidence of problems in the wood framing for the body and was, for the most part, still completely intact and original and clearly dry stored all of its life. There are a few scrapes, dings and dents on the aluminum body that have accumulated over time. This car is now awaiting minor paint and body repairs and a new interior, but does still occasionally get driven as - is to maintain its operation. The goal will be to largely preserve it as it is, sorting what needs to be done to bring it back to being a regularly useable example.