Bentley MK VI 4 1/4 litre Three Position Drophead Coupe by James Young
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Car producer : |
Bentley |
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Model: |
MK VI 4 1/4 litre Three Position Drophead Coupe by James Young |
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Year: |
1946-1951 |
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Type: |
Cabriolet |
The Bentley Mark VI 4-door standard steel sports saloon was the first post-war luxury car from Bentley.
Announced in May 1946 and produced from 1946 to 1952 it was also both the first car from Rolls-Royce with all-steel coachwork and the first complete car assembled and finished at their factory. These very expensive cars were a genuine success, long-term their weakness lay in the inferior steels forced on them by government's post-war controls. Chassis continued to be supplied to independent coachbuilders.
This Bentley factory finished car was given the name Bentley Mark VI standard steel sports saloon. This shorter wheelbase chassis and engine was a variant of the Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith of 1946 and, with the same standard steel body and a larger boot became the cautiously introduced Silver Dawn of 1949. The same extended-boot modification was made to the Mark VI body in 1952 and the result became known as the R type Bentley.
Mark VI engines and chassis were modified to provide higher performance and sold to be bodied by selected coachbuilders as the first Bentley Continentals, the most expensive production cars in the world and the world's fastest 4/5-seater saloons.
The Mark VI 4 1⁄4-litre used an F-head straight-6 engine 4.3 L (4,257 cc/259 cu in) in size. The manufacturer refused to disclose a horse power value for the car (other than Tax Horsepower of 29.4 hp according to the old RAC formula) but an Autocar Magazine road test reproduced in 1950 reported that top gear provided "flexibility down to 6 mph (10 km/h)" and the ability to "climb a hill of 1 in 9 maximum gradient, complicated by bends", all of which supported the manufacturer's contention that power, along with low speed torque, were adequate.
In 1951, a 4 1⁄2-litre, 4.6 L (4,566 cc/278 cu in) version of the engine was introduced and then referred to as the big bore engine. A four-speed syncromesh manual transmission was fitted with the change lever to the right of the driver on right hand drive cars and on the column on left hand drive versions.
4 1⁄4-litre cars had chassis numbers from B 1 AJ through B 400 LJ, with the final two letters indicating the series in which it was built. The "big bore" cars serial numbers begin with B 1 MB (although B 2 MD was the first big bore Mark VI built) and ended with B 300 PV (although B 301 PU was the last one built). Each alphabetic series only contained either even or odd numbers, and 13 was always skipped for the odd-numbered sequences/
The 4.3 L was referred to as the 4 1⁄4 L and can be quickly identified from its single exhaust. The 4.6 L is known as the 4 1⁄2 L and features a twin exhaust.
The chassis used leaf springs at the rear and independent coil springing at the front with a control on the steering wheel centre to adjust the hardness of the rear springing by hydraulically adjusting the rear dampers. A pedal-operated central lubrication system allowing oil to be applied to moving parts of the suspension from a central reservoir was fitted. The 12.25 in (311 mm) drum brakes were assisted by the traditional Rolls-Royce mechanical servo.
Towards the end of the war Car Division of Rolls-Royce prepared this postwar car to have its own factory-supplied bodywork, all-steel so it could be exported all over the world. The factory bodies with a Gurney-Nutting-Blatchley refined shape were made by Pressed Steel Ltd of Coventry and sent to the Bentley works at Crewe for painting and fitting out with traditional wood and leather. They featured rear hinged "suicide" doors at the front with concealed hinges, a sliding sunroof, a permanently closed windscreen with a defrosting and demisting unit hidden in the scuttle and an electrically controlled heater beneath the front passenger's seat. Twin screenwipers 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 centre of the screen.
By the end of 1952 order-books had shrunk and the Mark VI was replaced by the R-Type, featuring an extended boot/trunk, along with other less visible modifications and newly available home-market options, leading up to the introduction of the completely redesigned S series in 1955.
Production volumes:
4 1⁄4 L: 4000 (including 832 with coachbuilt bodies)
4 1⁄2 L: 1202 (including 180 with coachbuilt bodies)
Exactly 99, or about two per cent, of the total 5,201 Mark VI chassis were consigned to coachbuilders for special bodies. The car offered here was one of two hundred nine Mark VIs delivered to James Young Coachbuilders, the well-known Bromley, Kent, facility which was known for their exceptional bodywork fittings, especially their elegant door hinges and handles, and for the exquisite trim details on their bodies.
