The car modelled here was Winston Churchill’s second Oxford Series VI and is believed to be the last car to carry his name in its log book. It was despatched from BMC’s Cowley factory to dealers Caffyns of Eastbourne on the 23rd March 1964 and registered to Chartwell Manor in Kent on 12th May in his name. The car passed to Sir Winston’s widow, Baroness Clementine Spencer-Churchill, after his death and then to Ruth Clutten who worked for the family. In March 2013 the long-time owners, Arnold Clark Automobiles Ltd, decided to sell the car at Morris Leslie Vehicle Auctions in Perthshire; it was purchased by an anonymous private collector for £51,000.
Winston Churchill was born in 1874, learnt to drive as a young man and was a great enthusiast of technical advancement, famously advocating the development of ‘Land Ships’, or tanks as they became known. As a politician in the 1930s he argued against appeasement, saying Hitler was too ambitious to be contained through treaty, and on becoming Prime Minster in May 1940 led Britain through the Second World War and was pivotal in saving the free world from Nazi domination. His record as a politician, statesman and wartime Prime Minister meant he is still widely thought to have been Britain’s greatest ever citizen, as a BBC poll in 2002 proved. He was knighted in 1953 and, after passing away on January 24th 1965, was given the honour of a state funeral in St Paul’s Cathedral.