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ROLLS-ROYCE SPRINGFIELD PHANTOM I


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I am looking for owner history for this car from 1934 to about 1952. It is a 1930 Springfield Phantom I Brewster bodied Regent Convertible Coupe and its chassis number is S460MR. (The Rolls Royce Owners Club has provided the owner history from 1952 until today) This beautiful car was sold new to a gentleman named John Brischetto and delivered to him at his suite in the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco in 1930. He died in 1934 and no ownership history is known until 1952 when the car showed up as owned by an RROC member. I am hoping some forum members might be a better detective than I am, and might be able to fill in the gap. We think the car stayed in California and probably in Northern California in the China Lake area. Hopefully some long time member of AACA and or CCCA will remember this special car.post-93470-143142791965_thumb.jpg

post-93470-143142791961_thumb.jpg

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Are you sure you have the spelling of the name correct? There was a John Brichetto who was a lifetime member of the Studebaker Drivers Club (ca. 1973), lived in Tennessee. He is now deceased, wasn't old enough to be the original owner of your car, but might have been a relative. Here's an obituary posted on the SDC web site:

"John "Brick" Brichetto, long-time Studebaker enthusiast and former president of the Studebaker Drivers Club, died Sunday, August 8, 2004. He was age 75 and had been bravely fighting a long battle with cancer. John was devoted to family, friends, church, Studebaker, and steel guitars. He was the fourth president of the Studebaker Drivers Club and, until recently, had served as the SDC Trademark Administrator. John was a native of Knoxville, and a graduate of the Old Knoxville High School and U.T. Highlights of John's career include: an Elder of Lake Hills Presbyterian Church, owner of Autosport Specialty, a member of Riders of the Silver Screen, Founder and President of Screen Art, Inc., a Korean War Veteran, Leader of Scout Troop 11, and an Eagle Scout. He is survived by his wife of 43 years, Jean.

Memorials may be sent to:

Lake Hills Presbyterian Church

Missionary Fund

3805 Maloney Rd.

Knoxville, TN 37920"

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Thanks for your reply. I did misspell his name. It is Brichetto, and he may have been a distant relative, although evidently "Brichetto" is a fairly common Italian name. His full name was John N. Brichetto, and his son was John N. Brichetto Jr, and his son was John N. Brichetto III. In my hunt, I found a John N. Brichetto III in Maine, about the right age, but no relation!

The John N. Brichetto who was the first owner of my Rolls was fairly famous in the Sacramento, CA area. Google Brichetto Tomb. It's quite interesting and famous.

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  • 9 months later...
  • 2 years later...

I took the old cap, points, and rotor to my local NAPA store and asked the very experienced clerk to see if he could match them. He had a master catalog and was able to match them exactly. It turns out they were the same as 6-cylinder Chevrolet from about the same era as my Rolls. I put in 12 new sparkplugs of the correct heat range and reach, new solid core sparkplug wires and ends, rewired the incorrect wiring on the cap, and now my car starts easily and idles as it should.

 

I must say, that no one in the RROC ever mentioned that my Springfield built Rolls could also have American distributors, and perhaps they didn't know. I have learned that much information about Springfield cars is somewhat of a mystery and each of the cars is different.

 

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Very hard to do.  I once saw a metal building that looked exactly like a barn, you need to look very closely to figure out it wasn't the real thing. 


Does it have a full walk up?  You should post some pictures to the car barn thread.  The guys will love it.

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