Baby, You Can't Drive My Car

 

On this day in 1967, John Lennon took delivery of his one-of-a-kind psychedelically-painted 1965 Rolls Royce Phantom V from JP Fallon Coachworks. The inspiration for the design came from Marijke Koger, one of the design collective who was responsible for numerous seminal pieces of the period and was very influential in the psychedelic art movement. Lennon sold the anti-establishment Rolls in July of 1968. In 1985 it sold for a record sum of over 3 million at a Sotheby's auction in New York to Canadian, Jim Pattison. Later, as an act of kindness, he offered the car to the queen of England. Today, it can be found on display at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria.

Note: Though technically owned by all of The Beatles, the 1956 Bentley S1 paint scheme by student artists was much better executed than the rather tacky side panels of the Rolls.