Prince Philip’s old car, a 1935 Standard Nine, becomes a Sri Lankan royal artefact
Posted on April 16th, 2021
Courtesy NewsIn.Asia
April 16 (AFP) – An 86-year-old car that once belonged to Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, is now the centrepiece of a seaside museum in Sri Lanka.
The prince, whose funeral will be on Saturday, was a car aficionado who bought the 1935 Standard Nine for 12 pounds when he was based in Colombo with the British Navy in 1940.
When he came back in the early 1950s, he came and saw the car,” said Sanjeev Gardiner, who has kept the vehicle at his Galle Face Hotel in Colombo.
When he saw the car he said, ‘I hope the brakes work. They didn’t work then.’”
According to Mr Gardiner, the prince acknowledged that the Standard was the first car he bought.
He also became a patron of the Standard Motor Car club.
Mr Gardiner’s hotel, one of the oldest in the former British colony, has built a museum around the silver and black sedan, preserving it for the enjoyment of guests and tourists.
At the time he bought it, the prince reportedly failed to beat down the asking price for the second-hand car, though he did manage to get a payment plan of two equal instalments within a month.
According to museum records, he first drove the car from Colombo to a naval base in Trincomalee, 260 kilometres away.
The car, which has 93,040 kilometres on it, has been restored several times and can still be driven.
But Mr Gardiner said the prohibitive insurance cost means it is not taken out anymore.
The vehicle was bought by Gardiner’s father Cyril in the early 1950s.
Mr Gardiner said his father also loaned the royals the Cadillac used by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip during their first official Sri Lanka visit in 1954.
That along with another used by the royal family are being restored at the moment,” he said.
Prince Philip, who died at the age of 99 last week, was known to love cars and often chose to drive himself.
But in 2019, he surrendered his driving licence at the age of 97 after a collision that flipped his car and injured two other people.
During the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral procession on Saturday, a bespoke Land Rover Defender that he helped design will bear his coffin to St George’s Chapel.
April 17th, 2021 at 9:00 am
I hoped we should some gratitude to the Royal Family by at least hosting a Union Jack half mast? They love the Commonwealth countries the people. Unlike other known balu kings.
April 18th, 2021 at 2:15 am
@ Nimal
???? Please explain.
April 18th, 2021 at 3:59 am
Parangi brought religion of convenience and divided the Sinhalese. Darwin showed the world how all the creatures came to being and ‘sent’ all the gods to books and now www. WW1, WW2, Spanish Flu, now Covid19 no gods coming help! Wonder why? Covid19, Bird Flu etc etc coming from eating animals which we aren’t supposed to eat since our distant relative chimp isn’t a carnivore. Religions advice? Except Buddhism advice not to kill/eat them!
Then Fancy lakas brought worst foreigners imaginable and have already killed 100,000+, and haven’t given up the drealam while living all over the country, enjoying more benefits than the natives.
Then the other lot brought more. Sirima B arranged them to go back. 650,000+ agreed voluntarily. Then traitor alugosuwa thambi mudiyanselage jr@ stopped all of them and gave citizenship to all of them for their votes. Today they must be numbering 3-4 millions and waiting for a corridor to develop to connect to a greater drealam (Presidential Election map). Still a fan?
April 18th, 2021 at 3:59 am
Geeth
We must show our respects and appreciation to the last colonials and the Royalty who represent them a lot
Will you not appreciate the people who put the first public toilets,hospitals,schools,court houses,tea estates,rubber estates,our dalada perahara,not forgetting rock’n’roll.
Did our balu kings ever do that to innocent us the people?
So think, we are so bankrupt the only country the people who can only boast about the balu culture and our history. I associate and even employ people from many countries but non talk about their culture or history because a history of any country was horrible, we should forget the past and move forward but the good side of the last colonial history gave us a start to move forward and progress. Who knows the one time good colonials might turn a circle and go back to the dark ages as predicted by the great teacher as life is cyclical.
April 18th, 2021 at 8:02 pm
The ‘theme’ (or themawa) of this thread is Prince Philips’ first Car. It seems he was a car enthusiast; he designed his own Hurst!.
Now about good things he may have done to us: he was a naval officer attached to the Eastern command situated in Rosemead Place, Colombo. Was there any connection in bringing the Radio Ceylon’s first transmitter from a British navy captured German U-boat?.
His quote ” To be open more than usual ” which can be seen even today at the entrance to the senate building in the Pera uni has come true. Universities had limited entry opportunities then. Perhaps he had sixth sense as people of such positions most often do. Today it is full of young guys and gals from all corners of our country and some of them go on writing eulogies about its creator, Ivor Jennings et al. Only thing it does not carry out the things it was intended to do; its academics do full time politics today and it has been dominated by an Indian supported outfit by the name, JVP. Every time they have a problem they run to India via Jaffna and end up .., you know where!.
It seems to me he had some liking for the SL people. Every time our national cricket team played in England we could see him personally as a spectator.
April 18th, 2021 at 8:18 pm
One more thing about Nimal’s claim about our ‘balu kings’ of Sinhale.
He is absolutely incorrect here. I tell him also to read history. Who was our last Sinhala king?. It was none other than Konappu Bandara who mysteriously died in 1602. He fought gallantly against Portuguese just a few years before that and supposed to have died peacefully later. Was he betrayed by a ‘hitha honda geni’ for an Indonesia by the name, Adahasin?.
There were no Sinhala kings since then; all the rest were imposters, so I make a request to Nimal: please do not come out with such illogical claims again.
April 19th, 2021 at 6:24 am
Agree with Alloy. He has used this term before and I was shocked to see the disrespect he has for our ancient kings.
I thought maybe he was writing under assumed name to use such derogatory language. If a tamil or muslim such
terms we can understand.
Before the colonial menace got to our country, we had a 1000s of years old thriving civilisation. Then these invaders
destroyed all that, brought in people from india, divided the society and left. Mother Lanka is a melting pot thanks to
them and never going to recover from what they created. He is giving the impression that people in Sri Lanka didn’t go
to toilet until these guys came. Tea industry produces a crop not many people want to buy today thanks to some
crafty people, you know who I mean, started exporting the commodity. They gave such a bad name, today Sri Lankan
tea has a very bad reputation as a result no foreign buyers.
Aborigines, Mayoris, native Americans in the, native Canadians etc. etc in the doldrums. India is in 3 pieces. Millions were
killed when india suddenly partitioned alone. No empathy at all. In Sri Lanka how many people gave their lives to defend the
country. Obviously spear/bow and arrow was no match to the gun and they were annihilated. No one can turn the clock
back. The least they can do is help these countries they destroyed to get on their feet. If they can’t or don’t want to it
at least leave them alone to get on with their lives. Recent UNHRC etc. etc. showed what sort of reckless, uncaring
people they are. You are insulting millions of people worldwide who gave their lives to the bullet defend the invaders.
I am surprised LW let this guy keep insulting our ancient kings and hope these derogatory terms aren’t going to be used
from now on. LW ball is in your court if this guy can’t stop the abuse which all the Sinhalese collectively should condemn.
April 24th, 2021 at 5:54 pm
I will stand by what I have written.
One must look to the future and not the history of any nation that is very bleak and Sri Lanka is not any different. All countries had horrible rulers and kings, they never did much for the people and we don’t want those times back.
April 24th, 2021 at 7:18 pm
Nimal must have read is history from a wrong book, written for us by the Colombians in the axis of evil passing through Colombo in a north south direction.
If he is in London, he can go to British museum read Thripitaka where the true history of our country is written in Hela Basa.
Whatever it is the ‘wheel of dhamma’ is surely turning: if you do bad you will suffer for it, in this life itself. In 1986, Indians dropped parippu to starving northerners. And they sent their Javans to look after the affairs of them. Perhaps this is the time to reciprocate. Our well trained military can airdrop some oxygen to them. Also we can send our well trained top brass to manage their affairs in Delhi as their seem to be no management skills at all. Their oxygen tanks are exploding, the people are seen running helter skelter.
The story is same in the ASEAN region too: on the second anniversary of 4/21 a sub has sunk to the bottom of deep sea!. Nature has its own way.
April 25th, 2021 at 8:13 am
Aloy
I don’t want to go to the British museum and waste my valuable time to learn about the balu history of all nations, they could exploit this and make money at the door but I have better things to spend on and spend time on better things.Today alone I had breakfast with Spanish,Itallian,British persons, lunch with two Indian students who booked into our establishment. Yesterday I spent having a snack with two Greeks of Christian and Islamic background. I was very interested in their story about Helen Of Troy,one place I would like to visit.They both told me that it was just a exaggerated myth, no way they will ever launch 10,000 ships to attack Troy to rescue Helen. They and the Italians said that their histories are stained with blood of the innocent citizens which they enjoyed participating in the massacre of the innocent people. Most of my British friends never glorifies their dark history, where tower of London is a reminder. Their kings and Christian cardinals held the power of life and death of innocent. Their balu citizens enjoyed people being burnt to stake or hanged at Marble arch. Looking back in history and glorifying is very dangerous, gives some justifications for tyrants that emerge in countries in future.
Sorry I have to move on as I am very busy asual,dealing with several business I have.I want to write about the Parippu drop and Ch 4 presentation, when ever I have time to spare,in the mean time think of our Balu Kings,what good they have done for us,think also what the colonials done to enhance our standards of life,like first public toilets, yet people like to do that under the trees,which I trampled many times as a young fellow.
April 25th, 2021 at 9:33 am
Nimal,
If you go through the comments in this forum on various articles, probably you and I have contributed the most number, despite you being such a busy person. And I myself being deeply involved night and day in completing my first mobile app based on apps I developed earlier and used on actual projects overseas. For me it has not been without risks, which I do not want to elaborate on here.
Yes, we have had balu kings after 1602 (Wimala Dharmasuriya, Wimalu was his mother’s name).
Just because colonials built few toilets and some admin buildings, do not think our ancient kings were just nobodies. You said your ancestors are from A’pura and that you had lived there. How come you did not see the nicely built toilet systems that are there in that place with wonderful drainage systems. They had been done over two thousand years ago. Bring your friends and family and show your heritage!.
I went to A’pura for the first time with my family and in-laws and saw the wonderful creations in 1973 and was wondering who might have built them. The ancestors of the people I saw walking about could not have done them, I thought. Those buildings have the same signature of what I could see in Greece. Few years later only I was presented with a book by an author who had described that those kings actually were the descendants of a mix of Greek and North Indian Royalty.
It is now being discovered that Gauthama Buddha himself was born in this land and at that time this land was much bigger in size. People always tend to go back to their original place. Even birds and fish do the same. So this could be a much greater place than we know now. The aryan languages have derived from an old language found in that area. I have seen the pictures of vast amount of ruins in the east. You will find even the swastika etched on stone in the jungles of Dimbulagala. Yes, our balu kings of later years have tried to give away that area containing our heritage to our adversaries. If you read the book by Robert Knox which he wrote around 1680 you will get a better idea.
April 25th, 2021 at 2:13 pm
Aloy
I will definitely find some money to bring my friends to show these toilets you describe. I am very keen about people having good healthy food, good social life and good toilet habits, latter is my yard stick to judge how civilized a person is.I gave up girl friends and even associating with friends, should they break wind or live skid marks in the WC.I spent a great deal of time with my friends and US peace Corp friends building toilets for the low caste people in a village between Kurunagala and Nigambo.
This habit came after visiting the first modern toilet of Prof Dunnaham at the Peradeniya University.It was far above our usual buckets, it had an great impression on me.The Shopping complex I built in Kandy must be the first to have it’s septic tank where I thought of a way to empty it once in 3 months, perhaps by the local municipality. When I gave the money to build the complex the builder and my manger thought that I was loco. Today it is a normal set up.We buggers have a dirty habit to build our houses and stuctures beyong our legal boarders,sometimes on the road reservations, which is very common in a supposed to be a Buddhist country where people are utter greedy,selfish,etc.I have the first and perhaps the only car park in our shopping complex,that about 10 lots,which is now in demand. Our buggers are an insult to this noble religion. To day’s news is the horrible number of drink driving fatal accidents where our drivers drive with no regard to life and we call our selves cultured, what a joke?I was shocked to see our parliamentarians behaving like animals in the House,recently as on the 21st of this month.
See what is happening in India,who also boast about their cultural heritage, shamefully they have invested only 1% of their GDP on public health care while in UK it is 26%,no wonder over 300,000 getting the infection daily,having a severe shortage of Oxygen but they boast about their Taj Mahal(which thousands gave their lives and limbs for the dream of a balu king),sadly ex colonial UK is sending the oxygen all the way from UK and that must give someone to set up O2 and vaccine plant in the island, money for jam I say. Sorry I am busy .must go as the business is getting in to top gear….