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1930 Bentley 4½ Litre    
Original 1929 Numbers
Chassis No. XF3517
Engine No. XF3515
Registration No. GC 4566

  This car - updated
Chassis No.
Engine No.
Registration No. GC 4566

(Current owner / former owners, please come forward with further updates. - February 2019)
 
2003
In Switzerland in 2003 / Owned by a BDC member
1936 - 1970s
Click on thumbnail for larger view

'Benjamin' outside my grandfather
George Morton Dodd's house - Ridgewood Manor Uckfield East Sussex
   
 
 

"My father, Robert Malcolm Bell, owned this car from 1936 to 1948. My father's brother-in-law George Hugh Barclay Dodd acquired the car on behalf of my father from Jack Barclay following my Grandfather George Morton Dodd trading it in in part exchange for a Lagonda Rapide which is now owned by GHB Dodd who is now 98 and drove the Lagonda up to 2010. The Bentley which my parents called Benjamin was not found rotting in Dar-Es-Salaam in 1948 (as stated in Michael Hay's book).

In 1948 my father sold the car in running and original condition to John Norris who owned the car for a number of years and ran it in the Nairobi Nakuru race and raced it against an Aircraft on Malindi Beach. John Norris sold the Bentley to an Agricultural officer in Tanganyika who died in the mid 1960s and it was following his death that the car was found rotting at the Iringa Auction Mart at Iringa Tanzania. It was acquired from the estate of the Agricultural Officer by someone from Suffolk whose name unfortunately I cannot recall who was responsible for restoring the car in the late 1960s/early 1970s. He subsequently sold the car to Mr Tim Watson an auctioner from Heathfield in East Sussex, who lived not more than 10 miles from where my grandfather had lived when he bought the car from the Paris Motor Show in 1929.

Mr Watson or possibly his wife following their divorce sold the car to someone who I believe lived at that time in Switzerland, I have since lost track of it but would be fascinated to find out where it is. My parents used this car as their daily vehicle from 1936 to 1948 in Tanzania where it was first in Kilwa or Lindi then Songea then Kilwa again Liwale Mpwapwa and finally in Dar-Es-Salaam where my father sold it to John Norris, who, I believe became a multiple Bentley owner after returning to the UK."

 
     
     
  Source: Michael Bell (son of former owner)
Posted: Oct 17, 2012
 
     
1936 - 1948
 

This car was owned by Robert Malcolm Bell from 1936 to 1948.

 
     
     
  Source: Michael Bell (son of former owner)
Posted: Oct 17, 2012
 
     
1930s
Click on thumbnail for larger view

Log book of chassis XF3517
   
 
 

"I found the original registration log book amongst my father's collection. He used to be a personal friend of John Norris who took the car to Kenya."

 
     
     
  Source: Michael Binns
Posted: Mar 08, 2019
 
     
EARLIEST RECORD OF HISTORICAL FACTS & INFORMATION
 
Chassis No. XF3517
Engine No. XF3515
Registration No. GC 4566
Date of Delivery: Sep 1929
Type of Body: 4-seater
Coachbuilder: Vanden Plas
Type of Car: No info
   
First Owner: MORTON-DODD G
 
     
  More Info: According to original Vanden Plas Coachbuilder records, this car was originally fitted with Body No. 1616 with a 4-seater Sports for Paris Show; green fabric/green and beige paint; 9/1929.

Michael Hay, in his book Bentley: The Vintage Years, 1997, states: "Vanden Plas body no. 1616. Paris show car. Found rotting in Dar-es-Salaam 1948. MK Vl radiator (1967). Rebuilt by Moss, eng AB 3355 ex AB 3356."
 
     
     
  Updated: Jul 05, 2007
Posted: Mar 01, 2007
 
     
 
 
 
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Sep 30, 2020 - Info and photograph received from Simon Hunt for Chassis No. RL3439
Sep 30, 2020 - Info and photographs received from Dick Clay for Chassis No. 147
Sep 29, 2020 - Info and photographs received from Ernst Jan Krudop for his Chassis No. AX1651
Sep 28, 2020 - Info and photographs received from Lars Hedborg for his Chassis No. KL3590
Sep 25, 2020 - Info and photograph added for Registration No. XV 3207
Sep 24, 2020 - Info and photograph added for Registration No. YM 7165
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