The Steeple Times

Tag: rapper

  • Pimp My Hummer – Rapper Tupac’s 1996 Hummer ‘Eliminator’ For Sale For £333,333

    Pimp My Hummer – Rapper Tupac’s 1996 Hummer ‘Eliminator’ For Sale For £333,333

    Matthew Steeples reports on the sale of a £333,333 ‘pimped’ 1996 Hummer H1 that rapper Tupac Shakur bought just a month before he was gunned down and killed in a 1996 BMW 750iL leased by the ironically named Death Row Records just as his alleged killer goes to trial

    New York born rapper and actor Tupac Shakur – also known as ‘2Pac’ and ‘Makaveli’; born as Lesane Parish Crooks in 1971 – was well known for his love of flash motors and often featured them in his music videos. Whilst the black 1996 BMW 750iL he was shot in on 7th September 1996 is currently being hawked by Celebrity Cars Las Vegas for an astounding £1.3 million ($1.75 million), another of his vehicles is due to be auctioned later this month at a much lower sum just before a suspect in his slaying is finally due to go on trial also.

     

    Purchased new on 16th August 1996 by the All Eyez on Me star and convicted sex offender just a month before he died in a Las Vegas hospital on 13th September that year, Bonhams will sell what was described in 2016 by Page Six as a “fully loaded” Hummer H1.

     

    1996 Tupac Hummer H1
    Made popular after prominence in TV footage during the Gulf War conflict and Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming the first civilian to purchase one, the AM General Humvee – originally known as the HMMWV – was launched to the public in 1992 and later retroactively renamed the H1. Early versions were basically 7’2” fender to fender in length demilitarised HMMWVs that had been adapted to adhere to federal road use requirements. Later versions were far more luxurious. The most extreme included a double decker, stretch limousine version of a H2, as featured in ‘The Steeple Times’ in October 2012.
    Tupac in Hummer H1
    Accompanying the auction listing for the 23rd January sale, Bonhams include a black and white photograph of Tupac Shakur in the vehicle.
    Tupac in Hummer H1 waving
    Another image of the star shared widely online shows him waving from his blinged up beast.
    Tupac 1996 BMW 7 series murder car Death Row Records
    The 1996 BMW 750iL in which the rapper was shot on 7th September 1996 has been repeatedly offered for sale at sums quite frankly ludicrous. It currently is priced at £1.3 million through Celebrity Cars Las Vegas. On the fatal night, Shakur had been in Paradise, Nevada to attend the Bruce Seldon vs. Mike Tyson boxing match at the MGM Grand. He had been accompanied by his manager and Death Row Records founder Suge Knight and after the fight as they headed to the Death Row nightclub, Club 662. Stopped by police first at 11pm on Las Vegas Boulevard, but released without a ticket, the convoy in which the BMW travelled was subject to rapid fire on the passenger side from a white, four-door, late-model Cadillac sedan at 11:15pm. Shakur was struck four times whilst Knight was hit by shards only.
    Tupac Rolls-Royce Corniche IV
    The rapper had an extensive and varied car collection that included a ‘daily driver’ Rolls-Royce Corniche IV that the website 2PacLegacy.net declared as being something he was “quite proud of” and was “often seen driving.” After his death, however, his mother Afeni Shakur remarked: “I discovered he had next to zero, next to nothing. I discovered that the home that he had thought that he had just bought, was not his. I discovered that the Rolls-Royce that he was so proud of and that he loved so much, was not his. And since they were not his, I didn’t want any part of them.”
    The music video for 2Pac featuring Dr Dre’s ‘California Love’ (1996), part of the ‘All Eyez on Me’ album, featured a number of Hummers including the one to be auctioned by Bonhams.

    The 6.5-litre, turbo diesel V8 engine beast of a motor was customised for Shakur and features such things as an external PA system with three sirens, a twelve disc Clarion sound system, Sony GPS, a central tyre inflation system, air conditioning, rear sliding glass doors, privacy glass, Dick Cepek off-road lights, diamond plated bumpers and a 12,000 pound winch. Rather brazenly, ’Eliminator’ is proclaimed in large white lettering in the space above the rear driver’s side fender.

     

    After the star’s untimely demise, the vehicle was was appraised at £55,500 ($75,000) in his estate’s inventory, kept in storage for several years, offered in a ‘Picture Me Rollin’ sweepstake in 2003 and then sold in 2007 to Havenotz Entertainment owners Sardar ‘Candyman 187’ Khan and Yaasmyn Fula.

     

    Fula’s connection to the vehicle is relevant in that she was the mother of Shakur’s godbrother Yafeu ‘Yaki’ Akiyele Fula; an Outlawz hip-hop group member nicknamed ‘Kadafi’ in honour of the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. ‘Kadafi’ had also been in Las Vegas on the night of Tupac’s murder, was questioned about the crime by investigators and then was himself shot and killed in New Jersey just two months later in November 1996. He also was seen ‘cruising’ in the Hummer with his godbrother in in Los Angeles during the short period that Shakur owned it.

     

    Subsequently owned by a Canadian collector, the H1 “complete with a very aggressive front guard” was put up for auction in April 2016 for £74,300 ($100,000). The very last car purchased and pimped up by Shakur achieved a punchy £250,446 ($337,114), but that sale subsequently collapsed. It was reoffered at the same reserve in August that year and came with a California plate ‘YAKNPAK’ honouring both Tupac Shakur and Yafeu Fula.

     

    Classic.com report that recent prices achieved for 1996 Hummer H1s have ranged from £30,400 to £81,700 ($41,000 to $110,000); Bonhams will sell this mammoth military-esque motor on 23rd January 2026 at their Scottsdale sale at The Westin Kierland Resort and Spa and have set a very ambitious estimate of £277,800 to £333,333 ($375,000 to $450,000).

     

    Duane Davis Tupac Shakur murder trial
    Duane ‘Keefe D’ Davis finally goes on trial for his alleged role in the first-degree murder of Tupac Shakur on 9th February 2026. He has pleaded not guilty and has been held in prison without bail since his arrest on 29th September 2023. In an interview with ‘Rolling Stone’ in March 2025, Davis declared: “I’m innocent. I ain’t killed nobody, never did ever kill nobody… I’m supposed to be out there enjoying my twilight at one of my f**king grandson’s football games, and basketball games. Enjoying life with my kids… God got my back, and God will see me through this. He had my back with cancer, I survived the streets, and the FBI. That’s a big accomplishment for a man from Compton.” He previously told ABC: “I shouldn’t have said nothing. I’m innocent, man.” For context, ‘Rolling Stone’ added: “Prosecutors have argued that Davis was a longtime member and leader of group within the Compton, California Crips street gang. According to his indictment, prosecutors argued that Davis orchestrated Tupac Shakur’s murder and provided the .40-caliber Glock. Authorities claim the murder was retaliation after Shakur got into a physical altercation with Crip gang member Orlando Anderson inside a casino after a Mike Tyson fight on Sept. 6, 1996, hours before the deadly shooting.”

    Meanwhile, on 9th February, an actor Duane Davis – also known as ‘Keefe D’ – is due to finally face jury trial for the murder of Tupac Shakur after having been charged in September 2023. Davis, who has played minor roles in Diggstown, M.A.N.T.I.S., Psych, S.W.A.T. and Team Knight Rider, is an uncle of the alleged shooter Orlando Anderson. He is also the author of Compton Street Legend, a book about the crime which his defence now claims “is based on self-serving statements made for financial gain” rather than an admission of guilt.

     

    Follow Matthew Steeples on X at @M_Steeples and The Steeple Times at @SteepleTimes.

     

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    If you haven’t done so already, please consider supporting keeping The Steeple Times in the business of telling the stories that the mainstream media don’t dare touch by helping fund our work via Patreon.

     

    Further pictures of the 1996 Hummer H1 to be offered at auction by Bonhams:

  • Firing Up A 20th Century Limo

    Firing Up A 20th Century Limo

    ‘Stretched’ 1994 Toyota Century for sale for less than the price of a brand new Ford Fiesta; the rammed full of gadgets limousine comes with a food heating compartment and privacy curtains favoured by notoriously shy Japanese people even

    Whilst a 1967 Mercedes-Benz ‘Dictator Car we featured in April eventually sold for £237,000 ($298,000, €264,000 or درهم1.1 million), a lover of limousines with far shallower pockets might care to bid on a Japanese example that is headed to auction this month.

     

    Though the word “limousine” originally derived from the “type of carriage hood that physically resembled the cloak worn by shepherds in the Limousin region of France,” this automotive category is now sadly more generally associated with that especially ghastly, much over-used adjective “luxury.”

     

    Limousines are not only considered the preserve of the aforementioned despots, but they’re also the favoured modes of conveyance of business titans, young Arabic and Russian showoffs and rappers now even. A well-known reader of ours even once stated she’d like to have several herself. This friend of royalty added that a collection of security guards running alongside with torches also would complete her ideal spectacle.

     

    Coming in the form of a four-seat, stretched saloon car, the 1994 Toyota Century to be offered was imported to the UK by Mohamad Issa in 2019. It is longer than a Rolls-Royce Phantom, but slightly shorter than a Maybach at 19-feet in length, is presented in black with a black leather interior and was fully serviced in Japan prior to being shipped. The odometer reads 34,500 miles.

     

    Historics Auctioneers will sell the 1994 Toyota Century limousine at their Windsorview Lakes sale on 18th July. They have set an estimate of just £13,000 to £17,000 ($16,300 to $21,300, €14,500 to €18,900 or درهم59,900 to درهم78,300) and describe the car as being: “A stunning example of a rare car even in Japan, this is a real collector’s car that is a sign of wealth and power for the price of a new Ford Fiesta!”

     

    Featured earlier this year in a 19-minute video by two vloggers named Ben and Alfie of a YouTube channel named The Department of Motoring Affairs, of this particular Century they surmised: “People are surprised that this is a Toyota… If you don’t get it by now you don’t belong in the club anyway… If you know, you know” and indeed they’re right: Here is a quirky limousine that you could only originally have had if the Japanese ‘powers that be’ allowed you.

     

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    A 20th Century Limo – £13,000 to £17,000 ($16,300 to $21,300, €14,500 to €18,900 or درهم59,900 to درهم78,300) for 1994 Toyota Century limousine at Historics Auctioneers Windsorview Lakes sale on 18th July 2020 – ‘Stretched’ 1994 Toyota Century for sale for less than the price of a brand new Ford Fiesta; the limousine comes with a food heating compartment and privacy curtains favoured by notoriously shy Japanese people even.
    The passenger “compartment” is described as “richly appointed” and includes not only “soft and supple” heated power, leather seats with variable speed massage functions, but also gadgets galore. Most importantly for the notoriously shy Japanese market, the compartment has all-round curtains as well as an electric privacy partition to separate it from the driver’s compartment (with an intercom communications system).
    A 20th Century Limo – £13,000 to £17,000 ($16,300 to $21,300, €14,500 to €18,900 or درهم59,900 to درهم78,300) for 1994 Toyota Century limousine at Historics Auctioneers Windsorview Lakes sale on 18th July 2020 – ‘Stretched’ 1994 Toyota Century for sale for less than the price of a brand new Ford Fiesta; the limousine comes with a food heating compartment and privacy curtains favoured by notoriously shy Japanese people even.
    There is a cordless 1990s mobile telephone, a television (described as “working but TV to Japanese specification”) with a VHS player, as well as a tape deck built into the rear centre armrest that even has an in-built recording device. A mini fridge also has a heating function for hot food and there is a cabinet containing crystal glasses and a decanter even.
    A 20th Century Limo – £13,000 to £17,000 ($16,300 to $21,300, €14,500 to €18,900 or درهم59,900 to درهم78,300) for 1994 Toyota Century limousine at Historics Auctioneers Windsorview Lakes sale on 18th July 2020 – ‘Stretched’ 1994 Toyota Century for sale for less than the price of a brand new Ford Fiesta; the limousine comes with a food heating compartment and privacy curtains favoured by notoriously shy Japanese people even.
    A desk can fold out for a mogul who wishes to work whilst on-the-road inside their Toyota Century limousine. It is made of mahogany and for those that wish to ‘drink-and-ride’ there are mahogany glass holders as well.
    A 20th Century Limo – £13,000 to £17,000 ($16,300 to $21,300, €14,500 to €18,900 or درهم59,900 to درهم78,300) for 1994 Toyota Century limousine at Historics Auctioneers Windsorview Lakes sale on 18th July 2020 – ‘Stretched’ 1994 Toyota Century for sale for less than the price of a brand new Ford Fiesta; the limousine comes with a food heating compartment and privacy curtains favoured by notoriously shy Japanese people even.
    The chauffeur also gets to sit in luxury (unlike in many other limousines). Whilst in original limousines, the chauffeur’s compartment was open, here they get not only a roof, but a leather seat also.
    A 20th Century Limo – £13,000 to £17,000 ($16,300 to $21,300, €14,500 to €18,900 or درهم59,900 to درهم78,300) for 1994 Toyota Century limousine at Historics Auctioneers Windsorview Lakes sale on 18th July 2020 – ‘Stretched’ 1994 Toyota Century for sale for less than the price of a brand new Ford Fiesta; the limousine comes with a food heating compartment and privacy curtains favoured by notoriously shy Japanese people even.
    Technology is the order of the day given this Toyota Century limousine was manufactured in Japan. The car has automatic transmission, cruise control and a fully functional digital dash.
    A 20th Century Limo – £13,000 to £17,000 ($16,300 to $21,300, €14,500 to €18,900 or درهم59,900 to درهم78,300) for 1994 Toyota Century limousine at Historics Auctioneers Windsorview Lakes sale on 18th July 2020 – ‘Stretched’ 1994 Toyota Century for sale for less than the price of a brand new Ford Fiesta; the limousine comes with a food heating compartment and privacy curtains favoured by notoriously shy Japanese people even.
    The soft-closing boot contains the original tyre and jacking equipment.
    A 20th Century Limo – £13,000 to £17,000 ($16,300 to $21,300, €14,500 to €18,900 or درهم59,900 to درهم78,300) for 1994 Toyota Century limousine at Historics Auctioneers Windsorview Lakes sale on 18th July 2020 – ‘Stretched’ 1994 Toyota Century for sale for less than the price of a brand new Ford Fiesta; the limousine comes with a food heating compartment and privacy curtains favoured by notoriously shy Japanese people even.
    The engine is a Lexus 4-litre 5V-EU V8. Of it, Historics Auctioneers remark: “We are informed by the vendor that [it] starts well and pulls strong with the temperature gauge reading a little below half and the automatic transmission shifts are firm and smooth.”
    A 20th Century Limo – £13,000 to £17,000 ($16,300 to $21,300, €14,500 to €18,900 or درهم59,900 to درهم78,300) for 1994 Toyota Century limousine at Historics Auctioneers Windsorview Lakes sale on 18th July 2020 – ‘Stretched’ 1994 Toyota Century for sale for less than the price of a brand new Ford Fiesta; the limousine comes with a food heating compartment and privacy curtains favoured by notoriously shy Japanese people even.
    From the front; this Toyota Century stretched saloon is described as “clean and straight, the chrome trim and bumpers are all intact and gleaming.”
    A 20th Century Limo – £13,000 to £17,000 ($16,300 to $21,300, €14,500 to €18,900 or درهم59,900 to درهم78,300) for 1994 Toyota Century limousine at Historics Auctioneers Windsorview Lakes sale on 18th July 2020 – ‘Stretched’ 1994 Toyota Century for sale for less than the price of a brand new Ford Fiesta; the limousine comes with a food heating compartment and privacy curtains favoured by notoriously shy Japanese people even.
    And from the rear; here is a car that Historics Auctioneers laud as having a look “denoting conservative success.”
    Historics Auctioneers have produced a video tour of the vehicle to market it to potential purchasers during the coronavirus lockdown.
    The 1994 Toyota Century limousine to be auctioned featured in an amusing 19-minute long YouTube video in March this year by vlogger Alfred Munkenbeck and his co-host Ben (surname unknown). They plainly loved the vehicle.
  • Mike Posner

    Mike Posner

    Detroit born singer-songwriter Mike Posner became best known after the remixed version of I Took A Pill In Ibiza went viral. Whilst that single has been liked over 5.6 million times on YouTube, gathered over a billion streams on Spotify and peaked in the top 10 on the charts in 27 countries, Posner’s other claim to fame is that he walked 2,851 miles coast to coast across America in 2019. This Bernie Sanders supporting, Duke University graduate cites The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger as one of the books that has “impacted [his] life the most” and dyed his hair green when he joined a band named Mansionz; before he dies, he claims to want to work as a hospice chaplain, go to outer space and take his ‘mom’ to Namibia.

  • A Brylcream Bigot

    A Brylcream Bigot

    Nigel Farage’s communications man, “political poet” Dan Jukes, sinks to a new low in the wake of the attack on innocence in Manchester; this beer swilling bigot should henceforth be ignored

     

    In the aftermath of the appalling terrorist attack in Manchester on Monday night, Nigel Farage’s communications man, Dan Jukes, did not unite with those sharing grief. Instead, this bombastic “political poet” – one half of a duo previously known as the ‘Brylcream Boys’ – spent the next hours telling his 5,088 Twitterfollowers to “get angry, get mad” and “#sigh[ed]” of the Eiffel Tower going dark in solidarity with victims.

     

    Jukes, a man plainly lacking in any form of nuance of appropriateness, also shared a tweet that announced: “There’s no such thing as Islamophobia. It’s a word designed by Muslim Brotherhood [sic] to shut down debate” and another that read: “That’s enough hashtags and vigils. What we need now is public anger”. As well as retweeting wild and as of yet unproven suggestions that the date of the atrocity was linked to the fourth anniversary of the murder of Lee Rigby, Jukes also termed a missive by the respected human rights barrister Adam Wagner “dog shit” and then remarked: “Don’t trust this pair any further than I can throw them to sort out terrorism” alongside of an image of Theresa May and Amber Rudd.

     

    Jukes’ inane ramblings did not stop there. He continued by repeating unconfirmed information about the Manchester suicide bomber having allegedly been heard “chanting Islamic prayers loudly in the street outside his home in the week leading up [to the attack]” and then concluded: “Parents of terrorist escaped Libya and came to Britain as refugees. This is how that family repay us… Change needed… This is war”.

     

    At a time when tolerance between communities is especially essential, there’s only one thing worth doing with Dan Jukes: Let’s unite in turning off this pint-swilling little horror’s volume switch.

     

    #Manchester

     

  • Picture of the Week – Nutter meets Nutter

    Picture of the Week – Nutter meets Nutter

    Donald Trump held a meeting with one of the few “celebrities” willing to be seen in his company

     

    On Tuesday morning, at around 9am, Donald Trump met with the rapper Kanye West at Trump Tower in Manhattan.

     

    After the 15-minute meet West – who was recently hospitalised after having a nervous breakdown – and Trump posed for photographs in the building’s lobby. To the assembled audience, the President-elect remarked:

     

    “We’re just friends, just friends. He’s a good man. Going well. Long time. We’ve been friends for a long time. Life, we were discussing. Man, you take care of yourself, I’ll see you soon”.

     

    West refused to take questions and simply said:

     

    “I just want you to take my picture right now”.

     

    We share that image here and highlight it for what it truly is: An image of a nutter with another nutter.

     

  • Beckham’s blend

    Beckham’s blend

    David Beckham and Guy Ritchie launch new whisky with Diageo (more…)

  • Marshalling a dollar

    Marshalling a dollar

    Eminem’s childhood home for sale for just $1

     

    Owned by his mother Debbie Mathers – also known as Debbie Nelson – between 1987 and 1994, the rapper Eminem’s former home in Detroit is for sale with a starting price of just $1. (more…)

  • Video of the Week: Diddy does Downton

    Video of the Week: Diddy does Downton

    P. Diddy ‘stars’ in Downton Abbey

     

    In a Funny or Die spoof rapper Sean Coombs (AKA Puff Daddy, Diddy and P. Diddy) announces his favourite show is Downton Abbey. “Yes, I am an Abbey head, yes, yes, yes,” he begins before telling viewers that he’s become the first black cast member on Julian Fellowes’ hit show.

      (more…)

  • Shia LaBeouf

    Shia LaBeouf

    This Californian became a child star to help solve the financial woes of his family. He excelled in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and received a $15 million cheque for Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Aside from acting, he’s been in relationships with Carey Mulligan, Isabel Lucas and Megan Fox but it is bar brawls that seem to form a staple of his existence. LaBeouf was questioned by the Los Angeles Police Department after one at the Mad Bull’s Tavern in February 2011, thrown out of another called the Cinema Public House in Vancouver in October 2011 and lost his hat during another at the Hobgoblin in London, SE14 in November 2012. We somehow doubt this wild child will be transforming into a reformed citizen any time soon but we’re also betting his career will rocket.

  • Docked excess

    Docked excess

    Matthew Steeples compares two comparable examples of motoring excess: the “Golden Zebra” and the Fulda Maybach Exelero

     

    In recent weeks I’ve received a number of messages about an $8,000,000 car named a Fulda Maybach Exelero. One of them referred to it as “one of the most over the top cars on the planet” and so it piqued my interest.

     

    The 2005 Fulda Maybach Exelero concept car was inspired by the design of the 1939 Maybach SW38 Stromlinie

    The front of the car is dominated by an aggressively styled grille

    Whilst the rear would most definitely appeal to Batman

    A view from the side illustrates just how long this 5890mm vehicle truly is

    In these straightened times, such a figure seems quite a lot for a car but what, you may ask, makes it so special? Well, for a start it was a one off and commissioned in 2005 by the tyre company Fulda to showcase their Carat Exelero range. Designed for them by a 24-year old student named Fredrik Burchhardt of the Pforzheim Polytechnic Department of Transport Design and built on the chassis of a Maybach 57 limousine, this 2-seater coupé is 5890mm long and 2140mm wide. The vehicle, which weighs a not so insubstantial 2.6 tonnes, has a 5.9 litre V12 twin turbo engine and in testing achieved a top speed of 218mph at southern Italy’s Motodrom Nardo.

     

    In due course the Exelero was sold to André Action Diakité Jackson, a diamond industrialist, for €5,000,000. Jackson allowed Jay-Z to use the car in his Lost One music video before selling it to a “European entrepreneur” named Arnaud Massartic. Subsequently, various reports state that Massartic sold the vehicle on to the rapper Bryan “Birdman” Williams for $8,000,000 in April 2011 but other articles suggest that he failed to pay for the vehicle. Who knows where it is now.

     

    Rapper Bryan Williams (AKA “Birdman”) is best known as one half of the Big Tymers and is also the co-founder of Cash Money Records (http://birdmanstunna.com)

    Birdman in another of his cars, a Maybach 62s Landaulet

    Sir Bernard and Lady Docker

    The ex-London Motor Show 1955 Daimler DK400 “Golden Zebra” coupé with coachwork by Hooper & Company. Registration number: TYL 575, chassis number: 92705 and engine number: 48771.

    The front of the “Golden Zebra”

    Whether or not this piece of “automotive art” is indeed in the ownership of a “bling-king,” there are countless other examples of individually designed vehicular excess but amongst the most extravagant has to be an example commissioned by Lady Docker in 1955.

     

    Norah Docker (1905 – 1983), whose third husband was Sir Bernard Docker, chairman of Birmingham Small Arms and its subsidiary the Daimler Motor Company, spent £12,000 in 1955 creating the “Golden Zebra” coupé on the chassis of a DK400 limousine. She replaced anything on the car that would have normally been made in chrome with gold and upholstered it in real zebra hide. Black, white and gold-trimmed accessories completed the look and amongst them were picnic stools, folding rear seats complete with a cocktail bar and an elephant ivory dashboard makeup table with a mirror, compact, comb, brush, cigarette case and cream jars.

     

    Commenting as to why she chose to use zebra for the car’s upholstery, Lady Docker’s justification, in a quote that Barbara Amiel could only dream of having come up with, was simple:

     

    “Because mink is too hot to sit on.”

     

    The zebra hide upholstered interior of “The Golden Zebra”

    The car even features a golden zebra as a mascot

    Lady Docker, considered a visionary in her design skills by some and as vulgar and brash by others, even thought to include a drinks cabinet within the folding rear seats.

    In the front, an elephant ivory dashboard makeup table with a mirror, compact, comb, brush, cigarette case and cream jars show how much thought she put into the vehicle’s creation.

    Conrad Black and his wife Barbara Amiel have been much discussed in the press in recent days for their “extravagance.” They had nothing on Sir Bernard and Lady Docker.

    The 4.6 litre “Golden Zebra” was to be last of the cars created to Lady Docker’s designs as shortly afterwards, in May 1956, Sir Bernard Docker was sacked from BSA’s board for squandering the company’s cash. In addition to the extravagance of the “Docker Daimlers,” he’d used shareholder money, in a manner that could indeed be compared to Lord and Lady Black’s days at Hollinger, to buy his wife a castle in Wales and maintain a 212ft motor yacht named Shemara.

     

    Daimler forced the Dockers to return the Daimler vehicles Lady Docker had so diligently designed and in revenge she bought a Bentley Continental from the firm’s rival, Rolls-Royce. The “Golden Zebra” and the other “Docker Daimlers” were stripped of their expensive trimmings and sold. In 1966, the car was offered for sale by Daimler distributors Henlys of Chester for just £1,400 and after passing through the hands of several other owners ended up in California.

     

    In 1988, the “Golden Zebra” was purchased by a Daimler collector named John Wentworth. He restored the vehicle to its original glory with the help of experienced craftsmen and even managed to locate Kenyan zebra hides at a tannery in South Africa. Wentworth died prior to the completion of the car’s restoration and in 2006, it achieved £177,500 at Bonhams. The “Golden Zebra” came up for sale again in 2011 for £175,000 in Florida. It is now on display in the Louwman Museum in The Hague, Netherlands.

     

    “The Golden Zebra” was certainly a car that reflected the excesses of the 1950s and the Exelero was without doubt the equivalent for the 2000s. What on earth could usurp these two moving monuments of extravagence next? We are on the lookout.

     

    Watch a video of Sir Bernard and Lady Docker at: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/sir-bernard-counted-out-1

     

    View the Louwman Museum entry for the 1955 “Golden Zebra” Daimler at: http://www.louwmanmuseum.nl/asp/appmain.asp?appactie=collectiedetail&taalcd=en&collsq=5486

     

    View Fulda’s website dedicated to the Fulda Maybach Exelero at: http://www.das-projekt.com/EN/maybach_homepage_en.html