VintageBentleys.org has chosen to list the real Model Year of the car as well as the Date of Delivery. The date of the chassis leaving the Bentley Works to go to the coachbuilder is the date used to determine the 'Model Year' of the car. The 'Date of Delivery' is the date of the car having been delivered by Coachbuilder to Dealer or Coachbuilder to Customer. Please see page 313 of Hay's Bentley: The Vintage Years, 1919 - 1931. Here is the explanation for 'Column 5. Date of Delivery' in Hay's words: "Generally the date on which the guarantee was signed, i.e. after the chassis had come back from the coachbuilder and had passed the final test. The date of delivery could be long after the chassis had been built as the coachbuilders took anything from three months to a year normally, and in the case of chassis bodied with Bentley Standard coachwork towards the end of the Company's life complete cars often went round several dealers on a 'sale or return' basis before being sold."

Each summer the Bentley Motors Works closed for a break for employees to take vacations. Factory records show cars built after that break are described as the next year models. Prior to the way cars are model-dated today, back in the 1920s through 1970s, in the USA, England, France and in most countries, manufacturers would shut down the production of the current cars in the summer, retool for the new models and then start producing the next year model cars. So after the summer of (for example) the 1926 break, the manufacturer produced 1927 model year cars even though the cars were actually built in 1926.

My car, chassis 869, was delivered to the coachbuilder on November 11, 1924. Hay's book says my car has a delivery to the customer on December 24, 1924 (although the factory record shows that J. T. Johnson took the car in for service on December 9, 1924). The factory record shows my car as a 1925 model since it was built after the summer break. The delivery date does not determine the model year, just the date delivered from the coach builder, as explained by Hay. The date the chassis leaves the Works in relation to the summer break for the model year change is the date the Works states on their forms. The BDC has these records. Stanley Mann had said my car was a 1924 model when he had it for sale. The BDC pointed out to me that my car was a 1925 based on the Works records.

My point was and is that delivery date or registration date or guarantee date, etc. have nothing to do with the model year. A car could have been at the coachbuilder, dealership or wherever -- unsold, unregistered, etc. for months or years and the model year would not change from the model year that the manufacturer states in its records. But not everyone looks at the factory records and they go with the delivery date, registration date, guarantee date, etc. simply because they do not look at or have access to the factory records. This is another reason for everyone to just use chassis numbers.