Following on from Nigel Boothmans recent article in 'Rolls-Royce & Bentley Driver' magazine, about the white Silver Shadow featured on the cover of Oasis’ album “Be Here Now”, we thought we would fill in some of the gaps.

 

The white 1972 Silver Shadow (MDH119K) used for the cover of Oasis’ 1997 album “Be Here Now” was bought for spares in late 1996 by Flying Spares. Whilst it was waiting to be recycled our founder, Ben Handford, received a phone call from a production company who had been tasked with loaning a white Rolls-Royce for a photo shoot.

The company confirmed that the car did not need to run, it just needed to look complete. So the engine and the hydraulic units were removed. As the bodywork was in poor condition we sent it to local bodyshop, Dixons of Barwell, who added large amounts of filler and repainted the front half of the car. It was then transported to Stocks House in Hertfordshire for the photoshoot.

A week later the car was returned minus its mascot (which the production company had to pay for!). It then sat in our yard for between 6 and 12 months as we were unsure what to do with it.

When Bonhams announced that they were hosting a music memorabilia auction in London we decided to put the car in the auction. By this time the rust had returned and having been submerged in a swimming pool and then left outside for twelve months it was in a pretty sorry state. Consequently it only fetched £1,200 which was disappointing, but it was still more than we had paid for the original car.

The successful bidder must have decided they had bought a bit of a white elephant as a couple of years later we were offered it back. We politely declined.

It has not, as far as we are aware, been seen or heard of since. When we last checked it had not been taxed since 1993 and was not listed by the DVLA as having been scrapped so it may well still be out there somewhere languishing in someone’s garage.

In 2018 the BBC East Midlands Inside Out team came to Flying Spares to gain an insight into the role Flying Spares played in the creation of the iconic album’s cover. View the piece here….