When this 1936 Bentley 4½ Litre Vanden Plas Tourer was last sold in 1952, it fetched £260. Yesterday, it sold for £454,250 at H&H Classics’ Imperial War Museum auction.
Of course, this could be dismissed as an inevitable turn of events, given the car’s rarity and the passing of time.
But when you consider that the price it achieved was more than double the upper end of its £150-200,000 pre-sale estimate, it’s rather more significant.
The Bentley was the sale’s top seller and was acquired by a British telephone buyer.
And this is a car with quite a tale to tell.
It is the sole-surviving WO Bentley 4½ Litre Vanden Plas Tourer. One of six 4½ Litre cars built by the Service Department from new old stock parts in 1936, along with four 3½ Litre cars, it is the only one of that sextet that retains its original bodywork.
Until yesterday, just two people had owned it, the second since 1952, and it wasn’t just the car that had lived a noteworthy life.
Its second keeper was Charles Blackham who, as an RAF pilot in WW2, took part in the raid to bomb Hitler’s mountain-top retreat in the Bavarian Alps in April 1945.
