Unique barn-find Bentley could be the perfect birthday present

By Lizzie Pope

| 6 Mar 2019

Classic & Sports Car – Unique barn-find Bentley could be the perfect birthday present

Fancy getting a Bentley in your garage in the marque’s centenary year? Well, if you’re up for a project or you’re keen on, errrr, patina, this barn-find could have your name on it.

But this isn’t ‘just another Bentley’, if such a thing exists: this 1936 4½ Litre Vanden Plas Tourer WO Bentley is unique.

So what is a such a special classic going to cost? According to H&H Classics you’ll need to find in the region of £150-200,000 to take it home from the sale at Duxford’s Imperial War Museum on 20 March.

Let’s find out more about it.

This car – EMF 113 – is thought to be a matching-numbers example and is one of six 4½ Litres assembled by the Service Department from new old stock parts in 1936.

It is now unique because of those six, this is the only one that still wears its original Vanden Plas Tourer coachwork; the rest were all rebodied as Le Mans-style Tourers.

Since 1936 this Bentley has had only two owners, and it’s belonged to the second of those since 1952.

“It is a really wonderful discovery for all fans of the marque made even more special in the make’s 100th birthday year,” said Damian Jones, Head of Sales at H&H Classics.

“The Bentley we are offering is so unusual because it was assembled in the mid 1930s using a chassis and mechanical parts which dated from no later than 1931.”

“Only the body was freshly made when the car was assembled and sold as a new car in 1936,” Jones continued.

“The WO Bentleys made from 1919 to 1931 are far more valuable than the Derby Bentleys which followed from 1933 to 1940. The car we are offering for sale is accepted as a WO Bentley because its chassis and mechanicals were all made during the WO era.”

This car will be sold in H&H’s auction on 20 March in Cambridgeshire and you can view the full lot list here.

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