Luxury carmaker Bentley made a bit of a splash a couple of years ago when it announced it would be making 12 new examples of its famous 1929 Bentley Blower supercharged race car. A successful exercise in resurrecting a much-loved and iconic motor car, Bentley took notice and have announced that they will perform another Lazarus-like project, this time with the equally iconic Speed Six.

There’s real racing pedigree in the Speed Six name. Back in 1930, when the Blower was ripping around the racetrack at Le Mans and ultimately falling to reach the chequered flag, it was the Speed Six that kept up Bentley’s astonishing winning record at the world’s most famous race – 1930 would be the fourth successive win for the company, with the Speed Six taking first and second place, adding to its victory from 1929.

The Speed Six is also rather famous for being at the centre of a tale concerning one of the Bentley Boys – the adventurers and speed chasers that achieved great fame for their racing exploits in the 1920s and 1930s.

This group of mavericks included Woolf Barnato, the son of a South African diamond magnate, veteran of WWI, first-class cricket player, three-time winner at Le Mans (in a Bentley, of course), and future Chairman of the company.

The story goes that Barnato wagered he could, in his Bentley Speed Six, beat the ‘Le Train Bleu’ – an express locomotive that ferried well-heeled types from the port of Calais on the north coast of France to the Mediterranean Riviera resort towns in the south and back again – in a race from the southern coastal town of Cannes back to Calais.

Not only that, Barnato claimed he would be in the bar of his London club – meaning a ferry trip across the Channel had to be navigated too – by the time the locomotive reached the Calais terminus. He did so with four minutes to spare.

Bringing such a classic car back to life will be the responsibility of Mulliner, Bentley’s coachbuilding division which has been working with the company since 1923, became a part of Bentley in 1959, and which today produces many of the company’s unique and most luxurious vehicles, as well as overseeing the Blower continuation project.

That project sold out instantly and Bentley says the same is true of the new Speed Six continuations, with all 12 cars already reserved by customers around the world.

And what will they get for their money?

Well, the Speed Six was a high-performance and improved version of the 1926 6½ Litre Bentley. In base form, with a single Smiths five-jet carburettor, twin magnetos, and a compression ratio of 4.4:1, the 6½ Litre delivered 147bhp (110kW) at 3500 rpm. The Speed Six chassis was introduced in 1928 as a more sporting version of the 6½ Litre. The engine was modified to liberate more power, with twin SU carburettors, a higher compression ratio and a high-performance camshaft, responsible for an increase to 180 bhp (134kW).

The Le Mans-winning racing version of the Speed Six had a further-developed engine running a compression ratio of 6.1:1 and developed 200bhp (149kW). The 12 new Speed Sixes are, Bentley says, authentic to the design of the racers of 1929 and 1930.

The Mulliner team created a complete 3D CAD model of the car, from both the original blueprints and detailed analysis of original cars. Two cars have been referenced for this process, including Bentley’s own Speed Six, and ‘Old Number 3’ – the third of three Speed Sixes entered by Bentley into Le Mans in 1930 and a car that is still fully road legal.

Bentley says the first new Speed Six in 92 years will be assembled in the second half of this year and become the engineering test and development car for the project.

“After incredible levels of skill were acquired by the Mulliner team through the development of the Blower Continuation Series, and with the success of the cars with their customers, a chance to honour the Speed Six is a fantastic next step,” said Adrian Hallmark, Chairman and Chief Executive of Bentley.

“It’s vital that we protect, preserve, and develop not just this important part of our heritage, but also the knowledge we’ve gained through working with these classic Bentleys. The Speed Six is one of the most important Bentleys in our 103-year history, and the 12 cars of the Continuation Series will embody the same values as W.O. Bentley’s originals, crafted by hand with the same meticulous attention both to engineering quality and to fanatical attention to detail. The lucky owners will be able to race their cars around the world, and truly relive the exploits of the original Bentley Boys.”

Source: Motor Trader e-Magazine (August 2022) 

15 August 2022