Stones' car for sale

Back in the 1960s, each member of the Rolling Stones had a statement vehicle. Keith Richards was a blue Bentley S3 Continental Flying Spur, which he named Blue Lena after legendary jazz musician Lena Horne. In 1965, Richards purchased the car new. He later had it modified with a secret compartment in which he and the band could conceal their much-loved, and highly illegal, narcotics. The vehicle not only transported the band to various parties and gigs but also took them on some astonishing adventures around Europe and North Africa. “It was a car meant to be driven fast at night,” Richards said in his 2010 autobiography. “Having this car was already heading for trouble, breaking the rules of the establishment, driving a car I was definitely not born in to. Blue Lena carried us on many an acid-fuelled journey.” In 1967, police raided Richards’ country home, Redlands, an estate' in West Wittering, Sussex, just a stone’s throw away from Goodwood where Blue Lena will now be sold. As the police arrived, the band members were in the middle of one of their famously wild parties and were found high on various illegal substances. Notoriously, Marianne Faithfull, Mick Jagger’s then girlfriend, was lying on a sofa wearing nothing but a fur rug, prompting the infamous newspaper headline, “Nude Girl at Stones Party”. Richards was charged with possession of illegal substances. In the run-up to his court date, and no doubt to escape the media, he and the band decided to go on an overseas adventure. This was to a place where drugs were, at the time, more freely available – Marrakech. While Mick Jagger and Faithfull flew in, Richards and Brian Jones decided to go with Blue Lena along with model Anita Pallenberg, Jones’ girlfriend at the time, and friend Deborah Dixon. Early on in the journey Jones, his tempestuous relationship with Pallenberg at breaking point, was struck down with pneumonia and hospitalised in Albi, France. Dixon was the next to go – in Barcelona – leaving Richards and Pallenberg alone in Blue Lena marking the start of a relationship that only ended three children and 23 years later in 1980. James Knight, Bonhams’ group motoring director, says: “Richards sold Blue Lena in 1978 and it has since changed hands just three times. Following a five-year restoration, it has been returned to its former glory and will be offered at Bonhams’ Goodwood Revival Sale – very near to the scene of that famous 1967 raid – at an estimate of £400,000-£600,000.