Rolls-Royce collection fetches $14.3 million
Tuesday, August 21, 2007 3:31 AM
By Kathy Lynn Gray
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Developer Richard J. Solove decided years ago to sell his Rolls-Royces to benefit the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital, which he helped establish.
Ohio State University Medical Center
Developer Richard J. Solove decided years ago to sell his Rolls-Royces to benefit the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital, which he helped establish.
This was one of 13 Rolls-Royces on the block at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance auction in Florida.
Ohio State University Medical Center
This was one of 13 Rolls-Royces on the block at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance auction in Florida.
A billionaire Houston trial lawyer who has collected more than 800 classic cars now owns most of the Rolls-Royce cars that Columbus developer Richard J. Solove put on the auction block.
John O’Quinn successfully bid on eight of Solove’s 13 Rolls-Royce automobiles that were sold Sunday at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance auction in California.
Solove’s collection, which included two other cars, sold for $14.3 million. He’s donating the money, minus auction expenses, to the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute, as well as Ohio State University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Solove, 82, had predicted that the cars would go for about $15 million.
The collection’s “Corgi,” a 1912 Rolls-Royce SG limousine, sold for the most at $2.97 million.
The cars sold within an hour. O’Quinn bought all but one of the Silver Ghost models, which were the only known collection of first-series 40/50hp Ghosts, manufactured from 1907 through 1915.
He has been buying vintage cars for a number of years and plans to open a car museum in Houston in 2009. Among noted cars he already owns are a 1903 Ford Model A, a Batmobile, President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1941 Packard limousine and the 1975 Ford Escort used by Pope John Paul II.
O’Quinn has amassed a fortune heading up such cases as Texas’ $17.3 billion settlement with the tobacco industry and lawsuits against breast-implant manufacturers. Most recently, he represented Virgie Arthur, the late Anna Nicole Smith’s mother, in her battle to obtain custody of Smith’s daughter.
The lawyer purchased a number of other cars at the Pebble Beach auction, which broke an overall sales record of $60 million this year. O’Quinn could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Dr. David E. Schuller, senior executive director of the James, said Solove was treated like a rock star at the auction because of his donation.
“People were coming up and thanking him for what he was doing,” Schuller said.
The Rolls-Royce company presented Solove with a crystal bowl adorned with a traditional Rolls-Royce hood ornament; just before his cars hit the auction block, the audience of 2,000 gave Solove a standing ovation, Schuller said.
Solove has been collecting cars since the early 1970s and bought the last Rolls-Royce in his collection in February. He decided several years ago that he would sell them and donate the money to the James, which he helped establish in the 1980s.
“Dick has converted a unique collection of automobiles into something that will save thousands if not millions of lives,” Schuller said. O’Quinn told them he plans to retain Solove’s name on the collection when he displays the cars.
Solove is a first-generation American whose Russian immigrant father died of throat cancer in the 1950s.
Solove kept one Rolls-Royce — the 1931 Phantom II, the first one he bought.
“Dick has converted a unique collection of automobiles into something that will save thousands if not millions of lives.”
Dr. David E. Schuller
senior executive director, James Cancer Hospital
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2007/08/21/rollssale.ART_ART_08-21-07_B1_0P7M1C6.html?sid=101
I’m glad they corrected the line “... This was one of 13 Rolls-Royces on the block at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance auction in Florida. ...” to say “in California.”
I could not for the life of me figure out why in the world they would have had the Concours in FL. You’d be amazed how many of the true crime cases I’ve researched that somehow or other wound up involving this car event.
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As for Dannielynn’s BD event, I watch the same newscast every day as the one where they had a whole story on HKS NOT being invited and they have never said “ooops, we goofed” or otherwise taken back the original story.
And they *do* it sometimes, so if anyone did object to the story, the reporter would’ve said something. Not another word has been mentioned about Dannielynn or her BD at all - and nothing about O’Q’s add’l new car purchases, either - but that will come eventually. *oh, well, what can I say? I heard what I heard and I reported it here*
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Sure will be anxious to hear what happens with Thompson’s latest civil case against the estate. ET was foaming at the mouth about how he had withdrawn the original suit.
Guess it never occurred to them that suing a dead person doesn’t have quite the potential for success that suing a dead person’s *estate* might. At least they *did* acknowledge the new lawsuit as well, but it certainly wasn’t the lead or headline.
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Thought O’Q’s deposition with Leroy went well, for what it is - “jurisdictional.”