LONDON.- Rolls-Royce is celebrating the 50th anniversary year of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in its own way by bringing the colourful Rolls-Royce Phantom V, famous for being owned by John Lennon, back home to London for the British public to see.

Currently owned by the Royal British Columbia Museum in Canada, 'The John Lennon Phantom V' traveled from Canada to London to join 'The Great Eight Phantoms' – A Rolls-Royce Exhibition, at Bonhams on Bond Street, an area visited regularly by Lennon in the late 1960s in this very car.

Members of the public will be able to see 'The John Lennon Phantom V' at Bonhams from 29 July to the 2 August.

'The John Lennon Phantom V'
On 3 June 1965 – the same day that Edward H White left the capsule of his Gemini 4 to become the first American to walk in space – John Lennon took delivery of something rather special. It was a Rolls-Royce Phantom V in Valentine Black. He would later say that he always wanted to be an eccentric millionaire, and the Phantom would become an important step towards that dream.

Lennon had the Phantom V customised in true rock-star style. The rear seat was converted to a double bed, a television, telephone and refrigerator were installed, along with a 'floating' record player and a custom sound system (which included an external loud hailer).

Then, in April 1967, just as the recording of the game-changing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was finishing, Lennon asked Surrey coachbuilders, JP Fallon, to give the Phantom a new paint job. The freshly-painted Phantom was unveiled days before the worldwide release of Sgt. Pepper's on 1 June and it seemed part of the overall concept of the album.