Richard F Mattei's HB3420 4½ Litre Bentley
Richard F Mattei (Owner)
When repairing rotted work around the door of chassis HB3420 and underneath the coach, we noticed the VDP coach number is 1515. We salvaged some of the rotted wood and it shows that it was painted blue. VDP number is said to have a 2/3 sports body which mine is.
William Medcalfe uncovered the original coachwork number 1515, while the company was performing a maintenance on the car and replacing wood that needed attention. The last four photos below show the deteriorated wood which was removed. William Medcalfe removed this material for the coach while the car was undergoing a freshening. It was replaced with new solid Ash. You can see the original color was blue. The current color combination conforms with Hay’s black/red combination, with has been on the car since the mid 30s according to the registrations. I do not have registrations before 1937.
