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1930 Bentley 6½ Litre    
Original 1930 Numbers
Chassis No. HM2856
Engine No. HM2868
Registration No. PG 7832

  This car - updated
Chassis No. HM2856
Engine No. -
Registration No. PG 7832

(Updated with information from The Revs Institute. - July 2018)
 
August 2019
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The 69th annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, August 2019.

 
     
     
  Source: Sports Car Digest
Posted: Oct 10, 2019
 
     
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1930 Bentley 6½ Litre Speed Six

Serial No: HM2856
Engine No: Six-cylinder in-line engine, single port block, single overhead camshaft, four valves per cylinder, 6597 cc (402.5 cubic inches), 180 hp at 3500 rpm.
Wheelbase: 132 inches

Glory and heroics didn’t interest him, W.O. Bentley insisted. He was in racing strictly for business.

Bentley’s competition policy – if he couldn’t win a race, he wouldn’t bother to enter – meant that one never saw the Cricklewood cars on winding circuits or narrow road courses. The big Bentley needed plenty of room.

Ettore Bugatti’s famous remark that W.O. built the “fastest truck in the world” was perhaps tinged with a bit of envy, for Bentley’s record of winning Le Mans in four successive years was indeed impressive. In 1929 and 1930 victory was gained by the Speed Six, a Bentley so formidable in sports car races of the era that entries from competing factory teams declined. W.O. began to worry that big news would only be made with a “Bentley Doesn’t Win” headline. The headline never appeared. Because W.O. didn’t allow his cars to show any more speed than necessary to win, competitors never really knew how fast the Speed Six was. In 1931 what one scribe called an “old and tired” example won the Brooklands 500-Mile Race at the “colossal” average of 118.39 mph. It had already won Le Mans – twice...

Just 182 Speed Sixes were built. The car on display was built to team specification for Mrs. W.B. (Jill) Scott, racing wife of a more famous Brooklands racer. However, this Bentley only came into its competitive own after World War II, when it was acquired by the charming young Jean-Pierre Marechal who drove it to such good effect in races and hillclimbs that it was judged “best performer” in both Vintage Sports Car Club and Bentley Drivers Club events during 1947. Marechal’s burning ambition was to enter “PG” – his pet name for his Speed Six – for the first postwar Le Mans 24-hours in 1949, but the huge cost deterred him. Instead, he drove for Aston Martin, crashed and was fatally injured. Marechal’s dream of a vintage Bentley winning a postwar Le Mans inspired the 1950s novel “Speed Six”, but the project had died with him.

Photos – Peter Harholdt

 
     
     
  Source: The Revs Institute
Posted: Jul 26, 2018
 
     
2010
 

"Still in Miles Collier ownership. In remarkable original condition. Still finished in green. Fitted with D type gear box. And chassis is split pinned like team speed sixes.

 
     
     
  Source: Greg Porter
Posted: Apr 26, 2010
 
     
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This 1930 6½ Litre had California license plates #PIZ 532 when photo was taken.

 
     
     
  Source: Rolls-Royce by George Fenn, 1983
Posted: Feb 02, 2007
 
     
 

This previously 'unidentified' vintage Bentley has been identified as Chassis No. HM2856 by Olle Ljungström.

"Photograph shows hydraulic shock absorbers and clamp type perrot shaft/headlamp brackets, as also fitted to Team Cars HM2868 and HM2869. The same type of brackets were also fitted to at least one other Speed Six, LR2788, G. Nutting fhc. This car was also prepared for competition use in the Monte Carlo Rally."

 
     
     
  Source: Olle Ljungström
Posted: Feb 15, 2008
 
 
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1930 Bentley 6½ Litre by Vanden Plas was owned by Miles C. Collier of Naples, Florida, in the late 1980s.

 
     
     
  Source: The Classic Car: The Ultimate Book About the World's Grandest Automobiles by Beverly Rae Kimes, 1990.
Posted: May 26, 2007
 
     
 

This previously 'unidentified' vintage Bentley has been identified as Chassis No. HM2856 by Olle Ljungström.

 
     
     
  Posted: Feb 14, 2008  
 
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Car was in the Briggs Cunningham Automotive Museum in 1979.

 
     
     
  Source: Connoisseurs Choice — Racing, Sports & Touring Cars by Briggs S. Cunningham and John W. Burgess, 1979
Posted: Feb 02, 2007
 
     
 

This previously 'unidentified' vintage Bentley has been identified as Chassis No. HM2856 by Olle Ljungström.

"One of four 11' Speed Sixes, the other three being factory Team Cars. In Briggs Cunningam Museum, Costa Mesa California from 1949."

 
     
     
  Source: Olle Ljungström
Posted: Jan 24, 2008
 
 
EARLIEST RECORD OF HISTORICAL FACTS & INFORMATION
 
Chassis No. HM2856
Engine No. HM2868
Registration No. PG 7832
Date of Delivery: May 1930
Type of Body: 4-seater
Coachbuilder: Vanden Plas
Type of Car: SP1
   
First Owner: SCOTT Mrs W B
 
     
  More Info: According to original Vanden Plas Coachbuilder records, this car was originally fitted with Body No. 1658 with a 11' 1" wheelbase Le Mans type to Vanden Plas sketch 501; 4/1930.

Michael Hay, in his book Bentley: The Vintage Years, 1997, states: "D/7210. The 4th 11'WB car, raced post war Pierre Marechal. "Split pinned throughout. Bosh started and electrical equipment, Autopulses, Hartfords, bar type rad cap." USA. Vanden Plas body no. 1658."
 
     
     
  Updated: Jul 06, 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
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Sep 24, 2020 - Info and photograph added for Registration No. YM 7165
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