A Sporting Silver Ghost: How a Lost Skiff was Reborn

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For the young Edwardian lady or gentleman, there was no more fashionable way of spending one’s leisure time than taking to the river in a skiff and letting oneself be carried away into a watery idyll, like figures from a Renoir painting. Those who preferred more exhilarating travel partook of the skiff craze by attaching a motor and calling it a speedboat, but it was hard luck for landlubbers until Henri Labourdette perfected ‘the nautical look’ for cars.

It was René de Knyff, a director of Panhard, keen rower and active figure in Parisian society, who gave the idea of a lightweight, skiff-style car body to Labourdette, and the master carrossier delivered. The body he built for de Knyff’s Panhard was a sportsman’s dream, with its ash frame and handsome mahogany exterior.

It wasn’t long before Rolls-Royce skiffs were in demand, such as 2EB, the Silver Ghost loaned to The Autocar’s Charles Freeston for reporting on the 1914 Alpine Trial. None of the original Rolls-Royce Labourdette skiffs survive, but one Ghost which did survive—barely—was 23UB, which was discovered on a farm where it had been sitting half-submerged in water.

The rust-addled chassis was acquired in the1980s by American Fred Buess, who greatly admired Labourdette’s handiwork. He set himself the extraordinary challenge of restoring it as an exact replica of 2EB. In 2001, it débuted at Pebble Beach and is now a multiple award winner. David Burgess-Wise tells its story in the January issue of The Automobile, on sale now.

Words by Zack Stiling
Photographs by Tony Baker
 

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