Shortly after the armistice in 1919, WO Bentley, together with a group including Frank Burgess (formerly of Humber) and Harry Varley (formerly of Vauxhall), set about designing a high quality sporting tourer, for production under the name Bentley. Colonel Clive Gallop, who had been flying planes on the Western Front, which had been powered by WO’s aero engines, joined the team, specifically designing the four valve-per-cylinder camshaft arrangement for the first engine. With his brother, HM, WO established the first ‘Bentley Motors’, that same year.
The first Bentley Motors Ltd was founded in 1919, and between then and 1931, W O created the motor cars which became a legend and remain prized and treasured possessions at the end of the twentieth century, something of which the intensely modest W O would have been surprised, but also very proud.
The Vintage Bentleys
A vintage Bentley for sale like a 1926 Bentley 3/4½ Litre Tourer is a very original Bentley 3 litre Tourer restored and in perfect condition. Now the very good news was rebuilt by Stanley Mann Racing with the engine upgraded to a full 4½ litre spec with racing crank/rod. This vintage Bentley for sale also fitted an overdrive, fully rebuilt radiator, and big blower mages. This vintage Bentley for sale has fully rebuilt wheels brakes etc, etc.
Also, this vintage Bentley for sale will cruise all day at 90+mph. A very fresh looking rebuild without bull and in brilliant condition, the usual hype over with now so let’s get down to the facts. The quality of the work on this Bentley exceptional is very practical with a full set of side curtains (a torero’s version of windows) and loads of space for everything you would need on a touring holiday with the family. This was restored to her some 6 years ago and with only a limited mileage since she still feels very tight and fresh. This vintage Bentley for sale has an original Vickers body which is of a very high quality having made five bodies on 3 litre chassis and this is the only one known to survive.
Another vintage Bentley for sale is the 1924 Red Label 3/4½ litre, fully restored over the past 3 years to include a 4½ engine with Phoenix rockers, arrow con rods and counterbalanced crankshaft, chassis fully rebuilt with replica VDP body and blade wings.
The Bentley 8 Litre
Additional to that is the vintage Bentley for sale, a Bentley 8 Litre more specifically, sold to G.C. Usher of Aldwych House, Aldwych in 1935 at a mileage of approximately 20,000. By 1939 mileage had increased to around 50,000 but little is known of its history until after the War. In 1951 it was registered to Alfred Butler in Scholes near Leeds at which time it appears to have had a Shooting-Brake body fitted. In 1956 it was then owned by the Hunslet Engine Company in Leeds and was fitted with a diesel engine.
The car was bought by Chris Posnett of Barton Malpas in 1967, one of six 8 Litres that he bought as a very wise investment. He re-fitted an original 8 Litre engine which was reputed to have been in the racing Sunbeam, “Tigress”. The car body was by this time removed from the car.
Little was then done to the car by him until bought by the current owner in 2002, it being in a pretty derelict state without body but largely mechanically complete. This vintage Bentley for sale has undergone a total rebuild which was entrusted to Wayne Huckle in Lincolnshire who has completed the car in the style of what an 8 Litre would have been had it raced at Le Mans in the Bentley heyday. It drove for the first time in forty years in June 2007.
Image Credits: www.khulsey.com, www.madle.org
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