1929 Bentley 6½-Liter Tourer

Until 1926 Bentley made 4 cylinder cars primarily as sports cars and for racing. While successful in racing, they were not powerful enough and too small for large, luxurious, closed bodies. To meet the demand for a chassis larger than his established three-liter to carry closed luxury coachwork, W.O. Bentley introduced a new 6.5-liter, six-cylinder model in 1926. Its engine was mounted on rubber pads to limit vibration, and three wheelbases were offered, enabling customers to fit 'anything from a two-seater to a hearse body.' The engine had an overhead cam with 4 valves per cylinder, twin ignition, both magneto and coil and produced 147 horsepower. The 6-1/2 was successful and models were built with both light touring bodies and closed large coachwork. Since Bentley built only the chassis all bodies were built by custom coachbuilders.

But Bentley's sporting heritage would not be denied, and soon there was a sports derivative of the new car on the market. Known as the Speed Six, it had a higher compression ratio than the Standard Six, and two SU carburetors instead of the single Smith carburetor of the less powerful car. Out of the 544 6.5-liter Bentley's built, 171 were Speed Sixes. In 1929, Speed Sixes crossed the finish line in spectacular fashion at the 24 Hours of LeMans, scoring a 1-2-3-4 clean sweep.

This Speed Six has a Vanden Plas type sports tourer body, the most popular body for the Bentley racers. This example was originally owned by the Duke of Kent, and was thought to have vanished just before WWII. It was later found to have been raced extensively at historic events with a different body style. Considerable research was performed by the previous owner, Dick Gold. The current owners acquired the car in 1995.