1950 Bentley Mark VI

The first post-war luxury car from Bentley was the Mark VI 4-door standard steel sports saloon. It was announced in May of 1946 and produced until 1952. It was both the first car from Rolls-Royce with all-steel coachwork and the first complete car assembled and finished at their factory. As was a Rolls-Royce tradition, the chassis continued to be supplied to independent coachbuilders. (Rolls-Royce had owned Bentley since 1931 all Bentley automobiles produced through 2004 would inherit or share Rolls-Royce chassis, and adapted Rolls-Royce engines). Four-door saloon, two-door saloon, and drophead coupe models with bodies by external companies were listed by Bentley along with the Bentley-bodied saloon. The majority (4,190) of the 5,208 chassis were fitted with standardized bodywork, a four-door saloon made by Pressed Steel, with final assembly taking place at Crewe. Approximately one in five were delivered to outside coachbuilders and bodied to their owner's own requirements, the most popular being H J Mulliner, Park Ward, and Freestone & Webb. (Freestone & Webb was responsible for 106 individual cars).

In comparison to its predecessors, the Mark VI was smaller and lighter and oriented towards the owner-driver. Power was from a 4,257cc B60 six-cylinder engine with a light alloy cylinder head and twin SU H6 carburetors, developing an estimated 130 horsepower. In 1951, a larger capacity engine with a raised compression ratio of 6.75:1 and Vokes 30 full-flow oil filter was introduced. The bore increased from 3.5-inches to 3 5/8-inches resulting in a 4.5-inch displacement.

Carbureted examples with right-hand drive (RHD) configuration received two horizontal constant-vacuum SU carburetors while the left-hand drive (LHD) examples used a single dual downdraught Stromberg carburetor and the inlet manifold used on the Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith and Silver Dawn. RHD cars with the 4.25-liter engine had a single exhaust. The 4.5-liter cars with RHD had twin exhausts. LHD cars had twin exhausts with the introduction of the R-Type. All MK VI models were equipped with a four-speed synchromesh manual transmission. The steering wheel had a control that adjusted the hardness of the rear springing by hydraulically adjusting the rear dampers. Moving parts of the suspension were lubricated from a central reservoir by using a foot pedal-operated central lubrication system type Bijur-Girling. Mechanical servo 12.25-inch drum brakes provided the stopping power.

The X-braced chassis had hydraulic front brakes and independent front suspension by wishbones and coil springs. Standard equipment included a heater, demisters, radio, leather upholstery, picnic tables, vanity mirrors, reading lights, spare coil, reversing lights, oil level indicator, and fog lamp. Wheel spats and a sunroof were optional extras.

The 4.25-liter cars had chassis numbers from B 1 AJ through B 400 LJ. The larger bore examples wore serial numbers B 1 MB and ended with B 300 PV. The first big bore example built was B 2 MD and the final example was B 301 PU.

by Daniel Vaughan | Nov 2019