The term 'barn find' is regularly used to describe the discoveries that are revealed in the pages of Lost & found, but it is not often these days that you come across a genuine example.

I recently had a real surprise when a good friend took me to a remote farm in die USA and introduced me to the hard-working farmer. We went over to an old barn that was built on a mound with a large ditch around it, rather like a dry moat. The wooden bridge to the barn door had long gone, effectively isolating its contents. When the door was opened there appeared the familiar radiator of a vintage 3 Litre Bentley, nestling behind a couple of packing cases and an upturned table, all laced with a deep layer of dust and a covering of pigeon droppings.

Once inside, it became clear that the car was not carrying an original body but it is not known when it was rebodied, or by whom. The farmer purchased the 3 Litre from the widow of the previous owner in Scotland during the '50s. Little paperwork came with the car, though it is thought that the body might have originally been by HM Bentley, brother of the great WO. The brothers were in partnership for several years before HM resigned to concentrate on his car sales business and later moved into coachbuilding.

The 3 Litre is a long-chassis version that has been shortened. There is a one-piece bonnet from the radiator to the windscreen and a four-seater tourer body with the spare wheel mounted at the rear. The dashboard and instruments are not original and the front axle comes from a different model of Bentley. Underneath this body, which doesn't look up to HM Bentley standard, is an original car with the right engine, with twin Sloper carbs, plus correct radiator and front wings. It is thought to be a 1925 model and to have originally had a Weymann-type saloon body. It is the farmer's intention to fit a reproduction of the Vanden Plas open tourer body. I wonder if he will get round to it - it has been in the barn for 30 years already!