1923 Bentley 3 Litre Sports Tourer

This Bentley 3 Litre is the earliest surviving 3 Litre team car. It was built by W.O. Bentley for the Coupe Georges Boillot race held at Boulogne, France, in 1923. Frank Clement in Bentley's Experimental Department, which was effectively Bentley's racing shop, prepared it, and Clement was also the car's first registered owner. After the race, the car was fitted with the Vanden Plas touring body that survives on it today. It was used later as a test car by the Experimental Department and as a works demonstrator and was pictured in Bentley's sales catalogs and publicity material throughout the early 1920s. In 1925 it was sold to its first private owner, who took it to Australia where it remained until 2018 before being sold to a private collection in the Republic of Ireland. Restored in 1993, the car still retains many of the detail modifications from its racing heyday.