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1928 Bentley 4½ Litre    
Original 1928 Numbers
Chassis No. XL3114
Engine No. XL3116
Registration No. OX 8415

  This car - updated
Chassis No. XL3114
Engine No. XL3116
Registration No. OX 8415

(Updated with information from Historics Auctioneers. - September 2019)
 
September 2019
Click on thumbnail for larger view
 
 

Found on Historics Auctioneers website on September 16, 2019

Lot 183
September 21st 2019
Brooklands Motor Museum

1928 Bentley 4½ Litre Drophead Coupé by Salmons & Sons
Chassis Number: XL3114
Engine Number: XL3116
Registration: OX 8415
Odometer reading: 63,370 miles
Estimate: £380,000 - £420,000

~ Matching numbers car
~ Original period body
~ Good history

Walter Owen Bentley proudly showed his new 3 litre car at the 1919 Olympia Motor Exhibition, the prototype engine having fired up for the first time a few weeks earlier. This was the model which was to become a motor racing legend, with its classical radiator design and the British Racing Green livery, it has become the archetypal vintage sports car. Early success in the 1922 Isle of Man Tourist Trophy where Bentleys finished second, forth and fifth to take the team prize. However, by the mid 1920’s, the 3 Litre’s competitiveness was on the wane, together with the fact that too many customers were fitting unsuitable heavy coachwork led to the introduction of the 4½ Litre. The new 4½ model consisted of the chassis, gearbox and brakes of the 3 Litre model that it was replacing, the engine was, in essence, two-thirds of the six-cylinder 6½ litre unit. The new four-cylinder motor retained the same bore and stroke, four valves per cylinder driven by an overhead camshaft and having a combined block and cylinder head.

This matching numbers WO Bentley 4½ litre was fitted with a Vanden Plas, four seat, open tourer body was supplied to its first owner, S K Thornley in May 1928. In July 1928, the car was entered in the Bournemouth Concours D’Elegance and shortly after, in September, he took the car to France to attend Boulogne Motor Week. In 1932, it was purchased by the owner of Salmons and Sons Coachbuilders, Mr. Fred Salmon, who fitted the current 1928 Drophead Coupé body that he had had especially constructed for his personal use four years earlier and had fitted to his American King chassis. Salmons Coachbuilders was started in the 1820’s building horse drawn carriages with their first body on a car in 1898. The firm remained in the family control until becoming a limited company in 1939, then renamed Tickford Ltd. in 1943. In 1955, the company became the home to Aston Martin after the David Brown takeover. This Bentley had a further four owners in the UK over the next twenty years before being exported to the USA in 1962. By 1981, it was back in the UK and is pictured in the definitive history ‘Salmons and Sons, Tickford Coachbuilders’ by Dennis Mynard (featured on page 72) outside Aston Martin following the factory restoration. The car was then purchased by our vendors father in 1984 and put into his collection of classic cars based in Wales. During his ownership, he attended a number of Bentley Driver's Club and Vintage Sports Car Club events as well as rallies in the South of France and competing in the Gordon Bennet rally in Ireland. The car has been fitted with an overdrive unit, effective in third and forth gears, to assist in cruising to the long-distance events. Finished in green with black wings, black roof and black leather interior, this 4½ has been kept in dry storage since 2012 and has recently been started and was driven for the catalogue photographs. This Classic ‘WO’ is supplied with a V5 registration document, old V5 registration papers and a file containing old MoT test certificates, work receipts going back to 1997, copies of old photographs of the car back in 1928 and after and a copy of ‘Salmons and Sons, Tickford Coachbuilders’ by Dennis C. Mynard. This is an opportunity to purchase a vintage Bentley fitted with a period body and sufficiently good performance to still be a practical car on today’s roads.

This car is for sale as of September 16, 2019

 
     
     
  Source: Historics Auctioneers
Posted: Sep 16, 2019
 
     
September 2019
 

"I am contacting you as the current owner of this vehichle due to my father's passing (David Peter Beynon). This car is now up for sale with Historics Auctioneers at the Brooklands Museum. There are some lovely phtotos on their website of the car which could be added to the records of the car." (See photos above.)

 
     
     
  Source: Samuel Beynon (Owner)
Posted: Sep 01, 2019
 
     
2006
In Wales in 2006 / Owned by a BDC member
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"XL3114, 4½ Litre Bentley for F. Salmons, almost certainly the second body on this chassis." — From the article 'A Gallery of Salmons Bodies'

 
     
     
  Source: The Flying Lady, September-October 2006
Posted: Jun 27, 2013
 
     
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Chassis no: XL3114
Registration No: OX 8415
Coachbuilder: Salmons

 
     
     
  Source: Pipo Aymamí
Posted: Aug 15, 2014
 
     
1928
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Bentley VdP 4-seater, 1928, 4398 cc. Reg. No. OX 8415.
Boulogne Motor Week. Date: 3-9.9.28
Driver: Thornley
Entry Nos: 180/22. , S.K. Rally entry 22, Concours entry No. 180.

 
     
     
  Source: Getty Images (Artist Bill Brunell)
Posted: May 03, 2018
 
     
1928
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Chassis No. XL3114 in 1st body

 
     
     
  Source: eBay
Posted: Oct 26, 2010
 
     
EARLIEST RECORD OF HISTORICAL FACTS & INFORMATION
 
Chassis No. XL3114
Engine No. XL3116
Registration No. OX 8415
Date of Delivery: May 1928
Type of Body: 4-seater
Coachbuilder: Vanden Plas
Type of Car: No info
   
First Owner: THORNLEY S K
 
     
  More Info: According to original Vanden Plas Coachbuilder records, this car was originally fitted with Body No. 1479 with a 5-seater Tourer; 5/1928.

Michael Hay, in his book Bentley: The Vintage Years, 1997, states: "D/7020. Vanden Plas no. 1479. Now Salmons drophead coupe built on King ch transferred to this ch 1932."
 
     
     
  Updated: Jul 05, 2007
Posted: Mar 01, 2007
 
     
 
 
 
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