John Lennon’s 1965 Rolls-Royce Phantom V Touring Limousine is held by the Royal BC Museum in Victoria, British Columbia, and is periodically displayed in the museum’s glass lobby, particularly in winter months.
Coinciding with the release of The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album in 1967, Lennon had his black Rolls-Royce repainted yellow with psychedelic patterns and floral motifs inspired by Romany-style designs on a gypsy caravan he had purchased earlier that year.
After moving to the United States in 1970, Lennon donated the Rolls-Royce to the Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Decorative Arts and Design in 1977 who later sold the car at auction in 1985. It was purchased by Canadian businessman Jimmy Pattison for $2,299,000 for his chain of Ripley’s Believe It or Not museums. When Pattison was appointed to chair the Expo ’86 World’s Fair in Vancouver in 1986 he arranged for the car to be displayed there, and afterwards transferred ownership for $1 to the Province of British Columbia for display at the Transportation Museum of BC. In 1993 it was transferred to the BC Provincial Museum (now the Royal BC Museum) on Vancouver Island.
