Who says a Rolls-Royce never breaks down? This one did on the A43 in Northamptonshire

Motorists on the A43 in Northamptonshire were treated to the rarest of sights on Tuesday (July 13) — a broken down Rolls-Royce

Police coned off a stretch of the inside lane near Brackley while engineers very, very, VERY carefully loaded the stricken £250,000 Wraith onto a trailer.

According to the Top Gear website, it takes 60 pairs of hands 400 hours to build a Rolls-Royce – hopefully it won't take as long to fix one!

The legendary marque is famous for making cars that never break down — although occasionally one does "fail to proceed."

There are plenty “fail to proceed” tales over the decades but breakdown cover specialists Start Rescue reckon perhaps the most famous of all relates to Rudyard Kipling.

The Jungle Book author is said to have been on holiday in the south of France when his Phantom "failed to proceed" requiring a call the firm's Paris distributor.

A day later Kipling complained that no-one had come to fix his vehicle only to be told by the manager that a team of engineers arrived in the early hours, fixed the Phantom, then left before dawn so not to disturb the owner.