Tuesday, March 20, 2007 - British Silver Dawn

Light rain in Los Angeles - it started a few hours after noon - very Raymond Chandler. Or perhaps it's very English, and parked in the mixed mist and passing drizzle down on Santa Monica Boulevard was this perfect silver British thing, very appropriately.  This seems to be a 1953 or 1954 Rolls Royce Silver Dawn Saloon (no, not that kind) - but whether it is the "small boot" Silver Dawn or "big boot" Silver Dawn is hard to say. Big it seems.

But it has a pretty boot, doesn't it.  Take the photographs, drive up the hill, sip some Earl Gray tea - and read a bit of Dickens (perhaps Great Expectations), Vaughan Williams playing in the background.

Note the contrasting coachwork - classic in the foreground, Japanese in the background.

A few feet away, out of the rain, for sale at Heritage Classics, a Jaguar - a 1952 XK 120 OTS Roadster - yours for 82,500 or so.  How British do you feel?

If you wish to use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me. And should you choose to download any of these images and use them invoking the 'fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, please provide credit, and, on the web, a link back this site.

Technical Note:

Most of these photographs were shot with a Nikon D70 - using lens (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300mm telephoto, or after 5 June 2006, (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor, 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. They were modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0.  Earlier photography was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik