1930 Bentley Speed Six Sportsman Coupe

The first owner of this car was Bentley Chairman Woolf Barnato, and it is one of the most famous and unique vintage Bentleys in the world. For many years it was though to be the Blue Train Bentley that was used in a race between Barnato and the French train that ran between Cannes and London, but it is now accepted that another Barnato-owned Speed Six beat the train. The evocative design of this car is believed to have been sketched out by Barnato himself on the back of a napkin, and it was built by the Gurney Nutting Company. With its fastback, racy lines it really is the grandfather of the modern-day GT.

The cars built by Walter Owen 'W.O.' Bentley were entered in the 24-hour race at LeMans as proof of their durability. In 1924, a Bentley won for the first time and before manufacture ceased in 1931, when the firm entered receivership, Bentley automobiles had claimed four more victories. Joel Woolf 'Babe' Barnato, a South African mining heir, shored up the firm's finances. Barnato and a group of companions, known as 'The Bentley Boys', used Bentley's newly introduced Speed Six Model to attack LeMans with a vengeance.

The Speed Six models were produced from 1929 to 1930, with just 182 examples built during that time. The 402.4 cubic-inch 24-valve SOHC six-cylinder engines produced 180 horsepower. The tuned versions destined for LeMans generated around 200 horsepower.

Barnato had a likable personality and was a ladies' man, who boasted at a party in Cannes in March of 1930 that his Speed Six was faster than the famed 'Blue Train' (Le Train Bleu) that ran between the Riviera and northern France. A bet of 100 pounds Sterling was placed that Barnato and a friend in the H.J. Mulliner-bodied Speed Six salon could outpace the Blue train station. They began as the train left the Cannes station and raced over unfamiliar French Routes Nationales in the dark. When the duo reached the coast, they boarded a ferry and were parked in front of The Conservative Club in London just minutes before the Blue Train arrived in Calais. Barnato had won the bet, though he was later fined by indignant French authorities.

Barnato took delivery of this J. Gurney-Nutting and Company bodied, semi-streamlined Sportsman Coupe in May of 1930. It became known as the 'Blue Train Bentley,' though it was not believed to be the actual car that had raced the train. A commemorative painting of the coupe racing Le Train Bleu added to the confusion. Adding to the confusion, the late Diana Barnato Walker, Barnato's daughter, always insisted that the Gurney-Nutting coupe had been delivered earlier and that it was indeed the car with which her father had raced the Blue Train.

After being acquired by the current owner in 1999, Bentley expert Clare Hay discovered that this car could not be the actual race car as it was not yet completed. Historical records determined the car actually driven was Barnato's 1929 Bentley Speed Six HJ Mulliner Saloon.

Immortalized in a painting by Terence Cuneo, this coupe was depicted as the winning car when in fact Bentley Motors records clearly show that Gurney Nutting didn't finish its body, with its dramatic low rear-sloping roof, until ten weeks after the Blue Train run. Barnato actually drove another Speed Six, a rather more conservative H.J. Mulliner coupe-bodied saloon. Regardless of the evidence, this Gurney Nutting coupe has become synonymous with the event. It is rightly regarded as one of the world's most important Vintage Bentleys.