Created by a highly skilled and experienced engineer
Short chassis and front cross member
Hand formed aluminium bodywork with Derby Bentley bonnet and grille
Completed in 2021 and fitted with Bentley instrumentation
Post-WWII Bentley enthusiasts, wanted a more raw Bentley performance experience, that post war marques offered. With values of Vintage Bentleys pricing the Bentley experience beyond many motoring enthusiasts, if you wanted a more visceral Bentley ownership experience, that excitement could only be found with a ‘built-not-bought’ philosophy. With garages filled with sleeping ‘standard steel’ saloons often rotten and uneconomical to repair and restore, there was the saviour in the form of an unbeatable chassis, designed to be married to an enthusiasts vision, whatever it might have been, often more exciting, offering creative engineering, style and performance. 'Specials' created by privateers, based upon R-Type and Mark VI chassis, in particular, have been joined by a cottage industry of coachbuilders throughout the decades, all offering that more visceral, yet elegant journey to the pre-war age of Bentley performance.
Offered here is such an elegantly crafted R-Type Special, built with a love for the days of the pre-war Bentley. An experienced and highly skilled engineer, the previous owner had a history when it came to ‘Special’ builds, having previously fashioned a 250 GT in Short Wheelbase (SWB) from a Ferrari 250 GTE. His love of the marque as an enthusiast of the build process first and foremost. With an eye for the minutiae detail of his builds, the specification includes a newly manufactured short chassis and front cross member; Dunlop racing tyres on new 19" wire wheels; and the bonnet and grille from a 3½-litre Derby Bentley. The build called on the craftmanship of many hours in the workshop, shaping the aluminium bodywork and wings by hand. Inside the cockpit a suitably pre-war-style environment utilising leather trim and original Bentley gauges and instruments, with two timing-clocks fitted.
With 4 years of work going into the project which was completed in 2021 ‘PNU 920’ has had little use since its completion and further checks and test runs are recommended to ensure that everything is bedded-in prior to being taken on the open roads.
