QUALITY OF LIFE

This elegant Corniche has found a happy home for life, says its owner. Careful investment and attention has turned a good example into a car to be proud of…and it gets enjoyed, too.

It’s hard to picture sunny days out in glorious convertibles when you’re in the middle of a British winter. Perhaps readers in other parts of the world are slapping on the sunblock and taking the roof down, so we’ll try to get into the same mood. After all, it was only a few short months ago that we had a wonderful day in subtropical East Yorkshire, meeting Blair Jacobs and his Rolls-Royce Corniche.

As we pull up outside the farm property where Blair’s business, Pipe Dreams Classic Cars, is based, the Corniche is glinting in the sun like a well-polished bronze sculpture. That paint shade is actually called Nutmeg, a fine metallic that changes in the light, showing hues of rose gold amongst the darker tones. This is a 1980 example, and therefore a Corniche I Series II

(see 'The longest-lived model', p.43) with a mechanical specification very similar to the last Silver Shadow II saloons, built the same year. Blair has had his car since 2016, during which time it’s enjoyed various bits of attention, some quite involved. It’s still not perfect in Blair’s eyes, but it’s probably reached that state where only the owner can spot anything wrong.

Blair grew up with a father who was both a motoring journalist and a broadcaster; Clive Jacobs was most familiar to millions of listeners through his programme Going Places on BBC Radio 4. Cars of all kinds passed through the family and petrol entered Blair’s blood, if it wasn’t already there by breeding. He too owned many classics over the years as his own career in broadcasting developed, before an important moment in 2016.

‘We were in New York city, celebrating my daughter’s 16th birthday,’ says Blair. ‘I had a moment to myself and was browsing through Ebay, when I saw this beautiful Corniche for sale in Scotland. I didn’t buy it then and there, but I did contact the owner and establish an offer that worked for us both – if the car was as described when I went to see it. It happens to be my wife’s all-time favourite car, so I had an easy sell!’

Blair arranged to go and view the Corniche as soon as they returned to the UK, heading up to Dundee for the inspection. He found nothing that seemed too alarming and completed the deal, driving off in sunshine for the long trip back to Yorkshire.

‘It started in sun,’ says Blair, ‘but sun » became clouds, the clouds became rainy and the rain became torrential. Then the M74 came to an almost total halt for nearly three and a half hours.’

Blair was sitting in a 36 year-old Rolls-Royce convertible with no real knowledge of how it would behave when trapped in a traffic jam, and as wet as could be. Most of us have had similar experiences; muttered prayers or pleas to the motoring gods or the car itself – be nice, keep going, don’t let me down! Blair had clearly taken a shine to the Corniche already, as he admits.

‘I actually said out loud – “get me home and I’ll never sell you”. And it did…it just kept running, smoothly and quietly, all through that journey and we got home without any trouble.’

Perhaps in an effort to reward the car’s good behaviour, Blair set about improving both the mechanical condition (new spheres and an expensive brake rebuild, plus sundry fresh engine gaskets and some service work) and its cosmetic appeal. This later program of works became quite extensive, as Blair describes.

‘I stripped out the entire interior, including parts of the dashboard. The leather went away to have the colour stripped off; it needed a few repairs and it also was too yellowy for me. I wanted it to be closer to the colour of the hood. I guess it’s now nearest to Parchment, though it’s not exactly the same. Every piece of veneered wood went away to Chapman and Cliff in Cheshire, and they made an amazing job of it. In the end, the veneers themselves were renewed and re-lacquered, and the result is stunning.’ fuses, now replaced with new items. All that’s left is the replacement or repair of the air conditioning servo, but for most of the year, Yorkshirebased drivers of convertible cars can get by without air conditioning. faults that only owners can detect?

Time to head out for a drive. This part of East Yorkshire is almost fenland, with long straight lanes between table-flat fields and drains. The vanishing point, a mile ahead, would be an American view if we had desert around us rather than greenery and peaceful sheep, but it allows a relaxed approach to motoring: one hand on the wheel, roof down, windows down, elbow on top of the door.

Blair went around the car dealing with other minor annoyances such as slow electric windows in need of lubrication and temperamental »

‘I suspect there’s a little bit of filler in the car, here and there,’ says Blair, but we’re struggling to spot imperfections. ‘There’s some microblistering on part of the bonnet too, so I’d like to get the body thoroughly sorted out one day.’ Remember how we mentioned those

It's serene, as you’d expect, with the

FEATURE CAR ROLLS-ROYCE CORNICHE

gentle whoosh of the wind and the tyres drowning out any mechanical noise. We ask Blair for his impressions of the Corniche driving experience, bearing in mind he has recently bought, refurbished and sold a Silver Shadow of a similar vintage that made an interesting comparison.

‘The Corniche floats along and for a 1980 convertible, it’s pretty quiet with the roof up. Not silent like a modern convertible, so it takes you back in time to what they must have been like when new – which would have been much better than most other soft-tops. The difference I noticed between the Corniche and the Silver Shadow was really just in the legroom. The Shadow has more, but I couldn’t tell you why. I still love driving the Corniche though, and you can’t really beat looking down the bonnet past the Spirit of Ecstasy, can you?’

The country roads may be straight but they’re not outstandingly flat, though the Corniche does a fine job of keeping this secret from the occupants. It dismisses small aberrations in the tarmac but over larger dips and rises it can wallow and plunge a little – normal