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Nov
4, 2014: Sold
"1930 Bentley 4½ Litre Supercharged
(Blower) - Only Three Owners
Estimate: €700,000 - €850,000
Registration Number: GH 6880
Chassis Number: FS3617
Very few would dispute the claim of
the Bentley to represent the true
greatness of British sporting motoring
in the vintage era, and though the
title would be strongly contested
by proponents of the Three litre,
and some would argue for the merits
of the six-cylinder models, the majority
would surely pick the mighty 4½
Litre as the finest flowering of the
Marque. The car was a natural step
in the company's evolution; though
the Three Litre had been pretty successful
in sales terms, it had been developed
about as far as it could in performance
terms by 1925 and was beginning to
lose ground in competition to its
competitors.
The logical solution was the 4½
Litre; with a capacity fifty percent
bigger, output was very considerably
greater, and the powerplant was mounted
in a massively strong chassis which
was in fact very little heavier than
its predecessor. In standard trim
with a Vanden Plas touring body, it
was capable of a thundering 92mph
flat out, pretty near to the top of
its class, and some of the specially-equipped
short chassis cars with le Mans modifications
and higher gearing could top the magic
figure of 100mph. W O Bentley had
always been fully aware of the importance
of racing success on sales figures,
and the 4½ litre showed its
potential on its first outing at Le
Mans in 1927.
Frank Clements, one of the celebrated
'Bentley boys', the factory team drivers,
proceeded to smash the lap records
time and time again. Some 667 chassis
were built before the demise of the
firm in 1931, quick, strong and full
of character, but undoubtedly a some
of the most charismatic Bentleys of
all were the 'Blowers' the fifty-five
cars equipped with awe-inspiring superchargers
designed by the very gifted Amherst
Villiers.
The Blower project owed much to the
search for extra performance conducted
by Sir Henry 'Tim' Birkin, one of
the most prominent of the Bentley
boys; to be accepted at Le Mans a
total of fifty had to be produced
for homologation purposes, a strain
on the company's overstretched finances,
but the dramatic result was without
doubt a significant element of the
Bentley legend, a byword for sheer
power of a distinctly 'British' kind.
Long before Ian Fleming placed James
Bond at the wheel of an Aston Martin,
he had 007 thundering around in a
supercharged 4½ litre.
We are delighted to be able to offer
today a truly exceptional example
of the 4½ litre, in that the
entire history of the motorcar is
known and traceable with only three
owners in the past 84 years, only
a hand full of the very last 4½
litre cars were built to this car's
specification as they were intended
to take the extra talk and performance
of the Blower engines however commercial
pressures and costs took over and
these final cars, although built to
heavier specification, were sold as
normally aspirated Bentleys.
FS3617 was undoubtedly the ideal candidate
to be fitted with a supercharger.
FS3617 was delivered to a Mr Macpherson
by the firm of WO Bentley's brother,
H M Bentley and Partners, in August
1930; it is one of the very rare and
desirable 'heavy crank' versions of
the 4½ Litre, a strengthening
modification introduced on the late
chassis to cope with the additional
engineering strain when a supercharger
was fitted; another change was that
the engines were now cast in a light
and extremely strong alloy known as
Electron, as was the bulkhead between
the engine bay and the passenger compartment,
and an improved clutch of plate type
rather than the old-fashioned cone
type was employed.
The original owner retained the motorcar
until 1939, and the car's history
contains a charming letter from his
daughter to the BDC Gazette which
mentions some delightfully colourful
anecdotes of her family's ownership,
and then tells of parting with the
car on the outbreak of war.
It passed to a Mr Stribley, who had
it till the late 1950s and campaigned
it in Bentley Drivers' Club events;
a couple of shorter spells of ownership
followed, until it went in 1959 to
a Mr David Roberts of Richmond, a
dedicated and active Bentley collector,
who was to retain it till the late
1980s. After thirty years of storage,
FS3617 changed hands once again, into
the hands of the present vendor, and
a whole new phase in this remarkable
motor car's history began.
A restoration was begun, with an amazing
degree of sensitivity and attention
to detail; the correct original 10'
10'' chassis length was retained.
When, after further detailed research,
it emerged just how much these late
'heavy chassis' 4½ Litres had
in common with the Blower cars, as
we have seen, it was decided to bring
the car up to the specification of
YU3250, Sir Henry Birkin's celebrated
10'10'' Team car, and subsequently
reproduced to the delight of legions
of juvenile enthusiasts by Lesney
in the 1960s 'Matchbox' series.
The whole of the chassis and every
component on it, the drivetrain and
all its internals, were stripped of
the chassis and rebuilt by the country's
foremost expert Bentley craftsmen,
including a supercharger, heavy-duty
oil pump drive, and 'Blower'-type
front springs from the highly-regarded
John Bentley Company in Yorkshire.
Included in the history file is a
copy of a photograph of the original
H.J Mulliner Sports Saloon as it left
the factory, and also pictures of
the vehicle as found in its unrestored
state.
No detail of the magnificent exterior
appearance was overlooked either,
including such elements as a superb
original set of fork-fitting Zeiss
headlamps, with a Bosch trumpet horn,
a long Birkin-type bonnet with side
and top flaps, racing aero screens
with regulation wire mesh screen (though
a glass screen with wiper is also
with the car), and the motorcar is
fitted with the correct heavy-duty
triple-laced 21inch wire wheels, equipped
with fine new 650x21 Blockley tyres.
It really is very hard to convey the
sheer impact of this wonderful motor
car; it is extraordinarily hard to
find any Vintage Bentley let alone
a heavy-crank 4½ Litre which
still retains, after well over eighty
years, its original chassis, front
axle, engine, gearbox, steering box
and column, bulkhead, magnetos and
carburettors...the list just goes
on and on. The enormous amount of
expert restoration work really has
been quite superbly executed, in a
manner to inspire total confidence.
This motorcar really will be an ornament
to any collection in which it finds
itself, and will without question
be a source of immense satisfaction
to its future owner." |
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