Kate Middleton to ride in the Queen’s classic 1977 Rolls-Royce Phantom VI

Kate Middleton will arrive for her wedding to Prince William pulled by 200 horses. She’ll leave as a Princess, but drawn by just four horses.

Kate, the commoner, has chosen to ride to the church — Westminster Abbey — with her father in the Queen’s classic 1977 Rolls-Royce Phantom VI (200 hp.). She’ll leave a Princess, with husband Prince William, in the 1902 State Landau carriage drawn by four-horse hitch led by a big gray named Dan (or the enclosed Glass Coach if it rains).

The famous Rolls-Royce was given to the Queen in 1978 for the Silver Jubilee of her reign by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, a grand gesture by the imploding British auto industry. It’s a sign of those times for British automakers that the Queen’s 25th anniversary was 1977, but a strike delayed delivery of the limo.

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