Vehicle Description
West Coast Classics are proud to present a very rare and absolutely
exceptional and exquisite example of this 1953 Bentley R-Type 4
Door LHD 4 1/2 litre 'Big Bore' sedan with factory optional 4 speed
automatic transmission and 1 of only some 2,323 built in it's three
year production run between 1952-55 and a very rare Left Hand drive
example with air conditioning. This particular example is
strikingly finished in a 'Royal Garnet over Cream' two-tone color
complete with hand painted pin stripes which is matched to a
beautiful and also extraordinarily condition full 'Claret with
White Piping' leather interior and carpeting. The car has an
original Mohair headliner and it's original factory sliding
sunroof. This car was frame up restored with no expense spared in
recent years and has been stored in a climate controlled facility
by it's southern California collector/owner since the restoration
with the two-tone paint, the leather amp; wood interior, all the
chrome work including the original and very rare Bentley grille and
front and rear bumpers, all restored to obviously concours
standards and this car is very likely one of the finest R-Type
examples in existence anywhere today. The 5-digit odometer shows
just over 22k miles and the car boasts working modern day air
conditioning and the voltage has been upgraded to 12 volts. The car
drives extraordinarily well with the 4 speed automatic transmission
matched to the original 4.5L 6 cylinder engine making for an
extremely strong and responsive drive and the car drives as
straight as an arrow with no strange road wobbles, shakes or
rattles. It is a truly remarkable driver with supremely smooth and
easy transmission shifts in all gears! The car has adjustable ride
control, Lucas fog lights, twin picnic tables, factory tools and a
mohair headliner. Following World War II, a more global approach to
luxury car-building was needed and it was this realization that
would lead Bentley to start production of their 'standard steel'
models which started for the first time in 1946 with the Mark VI.
These were the first models to have a standard body built in-house
by Bentley which were made entirely out of steel. The idea was that
for the first time customers who otherwise would not have been in
the position to commission a coachbuilding firm would be able to
buy a complete car outright from Bentley instead, something which
was far from the norm for luxury cars before WWII. Bentley would
obviously still supply a chassis to a coachbuilder should the
customer be in a position to request it.Enter then, in 1946, the
Bentley MkVI. The first cars were delivered in September and the
order books quickly filled, leading to a three-year waiting list.
The dignified shape was derived from prototype bodywork seen on the
pre-war Mk V and it was the first production Royce or Bentley with
faired-in headlights. Running 16in steel wheels on a 10ft
wheelbase, the riveted, channel-section rationalised chassis was a
shorter version of the frame found under the Silver Wraith, the
grander cousin of the MkVI, which was exclusively coachbuilt in
wood and aluminium. It was the first Bentley to be assembled and
constructed fully in-house at Crewe for painting and fitting out
with traditional wood and leather. The Bentley Mark VI was the
first Bentley factory finished car, reflecting a change in
Rolls-Royce policy from strictly hand-built cars to 'standardized'
bodies that could be produced in greater numbers at the firm's new
factory at Crewe and was named the Mark VI and was produced from
1946 to 1952.Like pre-war Bentley's they were large, stately and
impressive and featured rear hinged 'suicide' doors at the front
with concealed hinges, a sliding sunroof, a permanently closed
windscreen with an electric defrosting and demisting unit hidden in
the scuttle and a second heater that made use of the coolant and
was fitted with an electric fan beneath the left front seat. Twin
screen window wipers were fitted and provision was made for the
fitting of a radio with a short and flexibly mounted aerial that
could be swung up above the center of the screen. The rugged
steel-bodied standard cars proved to have an immediately strong
appeal to the increased market. The Mark VI was an enormous
success, comparatively speaking, with 5,200 cars sold between 1946
and 1952, a huge amount of car's for the prestigious Bentley/Rolls
Royce marque, and a further 2,300 R Types were sold between 1952
and 1955. Numbers like these could never have been achieved without
the standard steel bodies, although it's important to remember that
Bentley still managed to continue to offer the coachbuilt cars, as
before although in obviously rarer numbers.It's true that these
Bentley models were very similar in almost every way to their
sister model offered by Rolls Royce, the Silver Dawn amp; Silver
Wraith, but the Bentley's cars were actually far better-selling
than those of its parent company. These post war Bentley's were to
have their first real success under RR ownership with the Mark VI
and later the R-Type and these cars would serve as the paramount
example of what was to later define a postwar luxury car.The 1953
R-Type was essentially the same car as the Mark VI, but with a
larger trunk, which prompted Bentley to change the name to R Type,
although they are essentially the same car. There would prove to be
no shortage of customers. New cars of every kind were in short
supply yet there was still plenty of money about in certain sectors
after the war ended: the flipside to the grim measures of the time
was that there were still lots of wealthy customers for these cars
who far from being crushed and exhausted by the war had actually
been able to still thrive financially. These tycoons, across the UK
and the still-existing colonies, as well as here in the States,
were more than willing to spend the exorbitant cost of it's day for
the ultimate luxury saloon, and the Bentley cars with their
legendary racing heritage were understood to have benefited by not
being as much of a class divider and status symbol as the Rolls
Royce. Remember too that Rolls-Royce was well aware of the
sensitivities around its name in an era of socialist rule, Clement
Atlees Labour had just won the 1945 election, and it was considered
wise by the parent company to focus attention, at least initially,
on a Bentley version of their new post-war models.The Mk VI became
the R-type in 1952; logically, it should have been the Mk VII but
Crewe did not want to share its nomenclature with Jaguar. With the
long boot treatment and extended rear wings (less spats), the
R-type had a more graceful profile than its predecessor, with a
liftup aluminium bootlid giving access to the significantly
increased luggage space, up from 6 to 10cu ft. Its styling
modifications were attributed to John Blatchley, later responsible
for the Silver Cloud and the Silver Shadow. The car rode on a
massive separate chassis using leaf springs at the rear and
featuring independent coil springing at the front, quite an
impressive advance for the marque in this period. A control on the
steering wheel center adjusts the hardness of the rear springing by
hydraulically adjusting the rear dampers. This is achieved via
opening a check valve that provides pressure by diverting
transmission oil to the dampers. A pedal-operated central
lubrication system type 'Bijur-Girling' allows oil to be applied to
moving parts of the suspension from a central reservoir by using a
foot pedalIn the fashion that was typical of Bentley in the day,
the engine displacement was expressed in fractions, and the company
refused to disclose horsepower ratings, saying simply that it was
"adequate". Crewe did not quote an output figure for the Bentley
version, b...for more information please contact the seller.