The 69th annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, August 2019.

"Hello Robert, this is about the car's photos (below) featured in the Queste Magazine, Winter 1999 issue. I am really hoping to find out the owner listed in the article. I have been having a hard time tracing the ownership history for this vehicle so I am hoping the article might answer some questions."

Readers are requested to contribute information. — VintageBentleys.org

Bentley Blower Meet, 2010

These photographs were taken just prior to tour from Yorkshire to LeMans Race Track in 1999.

Photographer - Ian Britton

Chassis MS3932 as Reg. S 3926

Blower 4 1/2, chassis MS3932 registered GN6087, with its original high-sided Vanden Plas four-seater body, a sister car to GO2641

(Four Bentleys from the Klein Collection in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, in the 1960s. Nearest the camera is 3 litre Vanden Plas Speed Model YR5725, chassis LT1579, rebuilt to Kensington Gardens concours standard by Dick Moss. Next another Vanden Plas car, this time a 1928 4 1/2 litre chassis FT3210 delivered new to L. Du Pont Copeland, and blower 4 1/2 EU919 with Birkin replica body by Townshend. Finally a second blower 4 1/2, chassis MS3932 registered GN6087, with its original high-sided Vanden Plas four-seater body, a sister car to GO2641.)

This car was owned by J.C. Medley from 1937 to 1940.

Below is the text of a letter written by J.C. Medley to the BDC in 1963. It was carried on pages nos. 116 and 117 of the Bentley Drivers Club Review, October 1963.

Dear Sir,

Subject: Mistaken Identity?

I enclose a very scratched photograph of 4 1/2 Bentley GN 6087. I owned this car from 1937 to 1940. I bought it from H.M. Bentley & Partners on the advice of my old friend the late Kit Baker-Carr. I have been looking for years for the negative of this photo as I could not remember the registration number and wanted to trace the present owner. I found the much battered negative last week and this enlargement is the result. The body was a very close-coupled sports four-seater, black and red upholstery and hair lining in red on the body.

Now here is the extraordinary thing. GN 6087 appears in Stanley Sedgwick's memoir on the Blowers as a 4 1/2 Supercharged belonging to C.G. Jackson in the U.S.A.. the Blower number is "not known". It also appears that the original engine in my car is now in the Pacey-Hassan having been changed in 1936 a year before I bought it — a fact which I do not remember in the registration book. Can it be that between 1940 and 1957 (when Jackson bought it) someone put in a Blower — GN 6087 was certainly not an original supercharged Bentley in 1939? The only peculiarities about this car which I remember were: 1) the Ki-Gass was removed and I had two electric pumps mounted on the near side chassis member under the bonnet; 2) I had 6 1/2 litre controls on the steering wheel with the mixture control as well as throttle and ignition. The car was a superb starter in any conditions.

The engine in 1939 / 40 was good but not exceptional and I would have doubted if at that date it would have stood up to a Blower. The D-type gear-box was all right.

Yours faithfully,
J.C. Medley

Kilnbank, Oxon

[The old company's original service record book for the Blowers shows GN 6087 as a 4 1/2 Supercharged. A pending summary of 3 and 41/2 records may throw light on this mystery. — Ed, The Bentley Drivers Club Review, October 1963]

The first 25 production Supercharged 4½ Litre cars where Chassis Nos. SM3901-SM3925, all with "smooth-case" blowers. The next 25 were Chassis Nos. MS3926-MS3950 and had "rib-case" blowers.

Production Blower Bentleys had handbrake handles made from rectangular stainless steel, whereas the five 4½ litre race cars for Tim Birkin had the "H" section handle, but were drilled for lightness.