Last month, Robert McLellan asked VintageBentleys.org readers this question. He said, "Currently, we have several cars with the same chassis number and cars that were destroyed and have a new chassis using the old number with a new body and new engine. How do we sort all of this out? Please speak out..." We have received several insightful responses, most that put us on the straight and narrow. Beginning this month, we share with you the comments we have received.

Received from David Green on January 31, 2016
Dear Robert,

You ask: When is a Vintage Bentley a real Vintage Bentley? One might turn the question round. When is a Vintage Bentley not a real Vintage Bentley?

A useful place to start is the famous judgement about the Bentley "Old Number One" in Hubbard vs. Middlebridge Scimitar Ltd, (Queen's Bench Division, #90/MJ/2474). The learned Judge decided that Mr Hubbard was selling a Bentley that was legitimately "Old Number One" despite having almost no parts in common with the original "Old Number One". Important changes to the car that had occurred included new sideframes, new engine and new body. Physically, it was a different car, but the soubriquet "Old Number One" legitimately applied to all the various incarnations.

At first sight, it would appear that the judgement supports the view that almost any amount of change can be accommodated whilst maintaining the identity of a car. However, careful reading of the judgement points to a number of important points for consideration. First, the learned Judge noted that there were no rival claimants to the title of "Old Number One"; there was a single historic lineage from first to last. Second, all the changes were made at the behest of Woolf Barnato, through the agency of Bentley Motors initially, or Wally Hassan subsequently. The judge found that Barnato's intentions were part of an unbroken line of development for racing purposes, with the identity of the car as "Old Number One" remaining throughout as Barnato's objective. The argument by Middlebridge Scimitar, that were not buying "Old Number One", because it was not physically the 1929 car, was dismissed.

However, the issue facing us as owners and dealers is one of legal ownership of title to claim a car has a specific identity, where the historic record is much less complete than that of "Old Number One". Many registration authorities, including DVLA, use VINs (Vehicle Identification Numbers) to prevent fraud, and the VIN for a vintage Bentley, as recorded on the V5C form, is its chassis number. The positions of this number are in the Technical Facts. As long as there is only one chassis in existence at any one time with a specific number, there is no way a second car can arise except by way of deliberate duplication. If a chassis number is duplicated, we need to ask why, but if it is for passing off as the original, then I suggest fraud is in play. That leaves us with a very open definition of what else constitutes a "real" vintage Bentley. To take one example: a few vintage Bentleys were fitted subsequently with Perkins diesels. As long as they sit in a genuine vintage chassis with a unique chassis number, they are vintage Bentleys. Indeed, apart from the engine, everything else may be pretty much original. What is the difference between, say, a Perkins diesel and a 5.3 litre petrol engine that looks moderately like a Bentley 4.5 litre petrol engine but is entirely new? Performance, yes, but originality? Not in the sense of an historic artefact. It makes the Bentley a bit like a Model T hot-rod.

So, if we ignore the position where individuals have deliberately set out to confuse by creating duplicate chassis, we have a spectrum of cars from the hypothetical, wholly unaltered barnfind from 1928 through to a car that has been progressively modified. They all have, in some degree. We all know that open tourer bodies were quite rare originally, but now the same is true of the saloon bodied cars. In the case of the 3 litres, we are going through a wave of conversion of 3 litre engines to 4.5 litres. This follows other changes, such as: changing steering boxes, back axle ratios, and flywheels, coils for magnetos, alternators for generators,carburettors, inserting plate clutches and electric cooling fans, and throwing away beaded edge wheels. At least one 3 litre being sold in the past year had a shortened long wheelbase, with no notification in the advertisement. Every one of these is technically a vintage Bentley, in some degree, based on its chassis number. But one should be under no illusion that, as an historic artefact, its provenance may have been severely degraded.