Diana's Escorts were third-generation cars, and she had three of them. After the rear-wheel-drive Mark I and Mark II Escorts—both still popular with collectors and vintage rally racers—Ford's European small family car now came with front-wheel drive.
She preferred to drive her own car, with a member of her security team in the passenger seat. The RS Turbo Series 1 was typically manufactured in white, but she got it in black to be more discreet. Ford also added features for her security, such as a second rear-view mirror for the protection officer.
But if you want to cruise like the royal, be prepared to shell out a pretty penny, as Princess Diana's car, a Ford Escort RS Turbo Series 1 just sold for upward of $850,000 (including a 12.5% buyer's premium).
Diana drove the black 1985 Ford Escort RS Turbo for nearly three years and was regularly pictured using it on trips to the posh London shopping strips of Chelsea and Kensington.
Well, because I used to own a turquoise Audi 80 Cabriolet which she had driven. As you will find out, when I sold it, it didn't quite match that amazing sum. It was July 1994.
Charles and Diana's Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud 1 (in Australia, 1983) The actual royal visit featured an earlier (and even more stylish) Silver Cloud I convertible. These details matter.
As for the Porsche, she never drove one. However, losing her way did allow director Pablo Larrain to insert one of his many symbolic devices: the princess stops at a café to ask directions.
In December 1991 Lady Diana took delivery of this Mercedes-Benz 500 SL. The wife of the Prince of Wales thus became the first member of the royal house to drive a foreign car privately.
The Princess used this car from 1987 to 1991, and it was then acquired by the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust in return for a contribution to her charity. Princess Diana was the third generation of the Royal family to have chosen Jaguars for personal transport.
The car was returned to the Ford Motor Company in May 1988, following Diana's untimely death, with 6,800 miles on the odometer. Geoff King, manager of Ford's Government Sales department, then bought it for his wife.
The Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow was bought new in 1979 by the British embassy. But it didn't come into service until 1982 after engineers spent three years and $200,000 armouring the luxury car to repel bullets, grenades and even small bombs.
According to Prince Diana's former lover Dr Hasnat Khan, the royal switched cars after experiencing faulty brakes. In his statement at the 2008 inquest into her death, Dr Khan said: “One day, in 1995, I had finished work and bumped into Diana outside the hospital.
The Mercedes Diana was a passenger in on the night of the crash was being pursued by the paparazzi after she left the Ritz Hotel in Paris. The car crashed in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel and Mr Fayed, 41 - son of Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed - and driver Henri Paul were also killed.
According to the Paris public prosecutors' office, blood analysis revealed the driver, Paul, had been found to have a blood alcohol content that exceeded France's legal limits. Additionally, Diana, Fayed and Paul were not wearing seat belts, CNN reports.
A production source told Deadline that the crew was “dreading” filming Diana's death and that there is a “certain anxiety, a palpable sense of being slightly on edge” among the production team.
Prince Charles gifted Diana a different Ford Escort RS when they were engaged. The now discontinued model was favored by the late princess, who, according to the auction house, preferred driving herself to a royal chauffeur.
This is a 1985 model Ford ESCORT RS TURBO S1 car. It remained with Princess Diana for 3 years.
On 31 August 1997, Rees-Jones was seriously injured in the crash that resulted in the death of Princess Diana. The Princess's boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, and their chauffeur, Henri Paul, were found dead inside the car; Rees-Jones was the sole survivor of the crash.
Before the Mercedes Diana and Dodi Al Fayed were riding in crashed into one of the tunnel's concrete pillars, causing their deaths, the car brushed against a white Fiat Uno, which witnessed the crash but drove away into the night.
Instead, the report said, the group switched vehicles simply because the first one wouldn't start. Tests later revealed Paul had been three times over the legal alcohol limit when he drove the car from the Ritz hotel on the night of the accident in August 1997, killing the princess, Fayed and himself.
In 2017, reporters from the British tabloid The Sun found the car's wreckage in an impound lot in Bonneuil-sur-Marne, 10 miles outside Paris. The right front door and right rear had been destroyed. However, the rest of the limo remains the same as it was after the crash.
During her lifetime, Diana had three Ford Escorts and the make was said to be one of the Princess' favourite - taking just two years for the Escort to be crowned the best-selling car in Britain.
The Paget report also describes Diana making comments about her brakes being tampered with to Hasnat Khan, her boyfriend between 1995 and 1997.
It crashed in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel. Mr Fayed, 41, son of Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed, and driver Henri Paul died. Bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones survived. A couple at the scene saw a white Fiat Uno coming out of the tunnel with a driver who was focused on his mirrors, the investigators said.
Since Prince William and Kate had children, his preferred ride has been a Range Rover it seems.