The Bentley car had started life in the early 1920s, being designed and manufactured by an ex RAF captain W. O. Bentley. W. O. had a healthy bank balance at the end of WW1 thanks to his inventing the aluminium piston for internal combustion engines and designing the BR1 & BR2 rotary aero engines and set out to make “very fast lorries” as M. Bugatti once told him. In fact he made wonderful cars but was always in trouble for money and after a 10 year history his company was sold to Rolls Royce.
RR wanted to have a sporting car to add to their excellent but rather staid image of stately limousines. During WW2 they had manufactured the epitome of aero engines: the V12 Merlin. These were fitted to the famous Spitfire, the Mosquito and the heavy bomber, the Lancaster. But they also made an excellent in line series for the British army the B4, B6, & B8 each used the same working parts but with different blocks of 4, 6 & 8 cylinders.
With the return of prosperity RR decided to launch a really Silent Sports car: it was also fast comfortable and elegant, this range was the Bentley Continental.
The S1 with Fastback bodywork by H J Mulliner was not only the fasted 4 seater in the world but it was also the most comfortable of sports cars.
It sported that B6 5 ltr. engine, suitably refined by RR mated to a fully automatic gearbox, power steering and the best brakes ever fitted to a motorcar until the disc brake was marketed in the 1960s.
This wonderful aluminium bodied car painted in a fine metallic Tudor Grey had walnut dash, door cappings and picnic table: these were emphasised for luxury with muted rich dark red hide seating and Wilton carpet: it must have been a stunner when delivered new at £9000 in 1955: at a time when a London suburban 4 bedroom detached house with garage and front and rear gardens was topping out at £2000 for a sought-after address like Harrow or Wimbledon!
Our Continental had been ordered with a few nice extras for the serious motorist: a Webasto Sun Roof: a Radiomobile All Wave radio which was powerfull enough to get BBC World Service, on S.W. band 14, in the Gobi desert (with depressing stock market reports 1990), adjustable shock absorber “ride control” on 4 wheels and centralised chassis lubrication.
We added, to original design picnic stools, mountable on the rear overriders, a picnic table mounted between them, and a trunk in place of the comfy rear seats. This had Purdy gun case locks and was indespensable for safe storage on our 3 month long motoring expeditions
This wonderful car took us to Peking, Hong Kong, Lhasa, Saigon, La Paz, Mexico City, Tibet, Katmandu, Simla, Bombay, Thimphu, Moscow, Samarkand and in almost every country of Europe and Asia Minor.