Cars for Sale

1928 Bentley 4½ Litre Gurney Nutting tourer

•  One of only three surviving cars with this coachwork
• Highly original throughout, including engine and body
• Accompanied by a full report from Bentley historian Dr Clare Hay
• Being offered for sale for the first time in more than 30 years

Described by marque authority Dr Clare Hay as being ‘remarkably original and correct’, this Bentley 4½ Litre has a fascinating history and still boasts its incredibly rare Weymann four-seater tourer coachwork by Gurney Nutting.

Conceived as a replacement for the 3 Litre model and introduced in 1927, the 4½ Litre offered greater performance thanks to its 4398cc engine and added to the growing Bentley legend by winning the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1928 courtesy of drivers Woolf Barnato and Bernard Rubin.

Chassis number PM3269 was built that year with the standard 10ft 10in wheelbase, received its final test at the factory on 1 October, and was intended for delivery to Sir James Dunn. The Westminster-based enthusiast also bought a 6½ Litre Gurney Nutting saloon at about the same time, but it’s likely that he didn’t, in fact, take delivery of PM3269.

Instead, the car was updated by the factory to 1929 specification, which included fitting a thermostat, a plate clutch assembly in place of the cone set-up, self-wrapping front brakes, and SU HVG5 carburettors rather than the earlier G5 ‘slopers’. The Bentley was then sold in March 1929 to Gordon Claridge of Curzon Street, just off fashionable Park Lane in London.

The factory service records log the work that was carried out on PM3269 up until April 1938, when the old Kingsbury Service Department was closed. By 1954, the car was in the ownership of young enthusiast Viscount Bury, and was then acquired the following year by noted collector Peter Palumbo; it won its class in the 1956 Bentley Drivers Club concours at Kensington Gardens.

By 1961, PM3269 had been bought by Dudley Gillingham – a professional wrestler who often fought under the pseudonym ‘Alan Garfield’ and would taunt crowds and opponents with his fictitious upper-class persona. Gillingham was something of a trailblazer in that he often toured the US, and in 1962 he sold the Bentley – which he’d taken with him, perhaps to reinforce his ‘aristocratic’ wrestling facade – to American wrestler Frederick Frank Townsend II.

Sadly, the car’s new owner died the following year, after which PM3269 remained in storage until 1993. It was then bought by Tim O’Rorke before passing, via Fiskens, to its current owner in 1994. Early on in this current ownership of over 30-years, PM3269’s engine was rebuilt by P&A Wood and the renowned specialists have continued to tend to it ever since. With the current owner’s conscientious stewardship and under the expert eye of P&A Wood, PM3269 remains in astoundingly original condition to this day.

This Bentley 4½ Litre is accompanied by a full report by Dr Clare Hay, which notes that it’s one of only three survivors with this type of Gurney Nutting coachwork. It also retains its original engine, and the carburettors and manifold are a matched, numbered set with serial numbers appropriate for early 1929, when PM3269 was updated by the factory to the latest specification.

A later C-type gearbox from chassis number PB3544 has been fitted, most likely when Dudley Gillingham owned both cars in the early 1960s, but the front and rear axles are original to the car and stamped ‘PM3269’, and even the handbrake lever still features its original plating.

Cricklewood-era Bentleys are among the most usable, enjoyable and eligible of all vintage cars, and this charismatic ‘Preservation Class’ 4½ Litre – which is being offered for sale for the first time in more than 30 years – is no exception.