Speed Six Bentley rolls off production line
The first customer Bentley Speed Six Continuation Series car has been completed and will be delivered to the US. This makes the first delivery of a new Bentley Speed Six since 1930. The buyer, John Breslow, will receive his car “as a racing companion” to his Blower Continuation Series.
Commissioned just over a year ago, the car is finished with Parsons Napier Green bodywork sitting on a black-painted chassis. Built “by hand from scratch,” each car took eight months to finish. The team of Mulliner technicians and artisans worked closely with “a network of specialist suppliers” all over the UK to recreate every detail of the original.
That includes the interior where every gauge, switch, and control is exactly as it would be in the car that won Le Mans in 1930.
At the beginning of the project, the team at Mulliner Classic visited the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu to verify five authentic period Parsons Paint. Over 600 individual parts, including an entire engine block casting, were fabricated for the new 6½ litre race spec engine. At the time it made 200bhp but dyno testing of the recreated motor found it to be slightly more at 205hbhp. That is thanks to modern engineering materials.
The “aim of the Continuation Series team,” Bentley says, “was to create a Bentley exactly as it would have looked and performed in 1930.”
The Speed Six is considered to be the brand’s most important car ever. It was its most successful racer ever made. Using the same manufacturing process as the original, the new one is the second pre-war Continuation Series by Mulliner, Bentley’s bespoke and coachbuilding division.
The first was the Blower Continuation Series. The recreated 1924 4½ litre supercharged Team Car #2 is the most famous Bentley ever and was used for blueprints and 3D data to make the new car as authentic as possible.
2024 would mark a century since Bentley’s first ever win at Le Mans with the Blower being the car that achieved it.
Stay tuned to EyeOnLondon for the latest news and expert opinions.
