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Radley's outstanding performance in a Silver Ghost tourer during the grueling
Austrian Alpine Trials of 1914 represented a two-edged marketing sword in
the hands of Rolls-Royce Managing Director, Claude Johnson. Not only did the
motoring press report Radley's victory over cars of much greater displacement
and cost, but Johnson had managed a marketing coup d'etat by providing the
most spectacular Silver Ghost ever for the reporters of The Autocar, Britain's
popular motoring journal, to use while covering the 1800 mile race. That car
was the fourth and most striking of five mahogany skiffs on pre-1916 Silver
Ghosts by Henri Labourdette. While Radley compiled the only perfect score
in his class during ten days of racing over the most treacherous passes in
the Austrian Alps, the skiff carried its influential passengers with the alacrity
and composure only a Rolls-Royce could provide. Radley's convincing victory
over grand marques such as Benz, Graf and Stift, Minerva, Horch, Fiat and
Austro-Daimler for the second year in a row went a long way toward establishing
Rolls-Royce as the best car in the world, but it was Charles L. Freeston's
account in The Autocar of frantically dashing about to follow the action in
the willing skiff that endeared the Silver Ghost to the hearts of Britons
and auto enthusiasts around the world.
