A Bentley Icon Is Being Reborn In Painstaking Multi-Million Dollar Detail

Bentley has announced that after 92 years, it is going to assemble a limited run of 13 cars that will be painstakingly assembled to match the original Speed Six units. One of these, the Car Zero, will remain in the hands of the company. The other 12 will cost upwards of $1.838 million each, but even if you have the cash in the bank, you won’t be able to buy one. Bentley says the cars have already been reserved by a dozen lucky buyers from around the world.

A CAD model was constructed from old blueprints and two surviving examples of the Speed Six. Old Number Three was one of Bentley’s entrants in the 1930 Le Mans 24 Hours. It survived the race and has been described as being in excellent condition, “still fully road legal,” and actively raced by its owner today. The second reference car, which will be used to gather benchmark performance and handling data, is a 1929 Speed Six from Bentley’s own collection. The second car has been described as “wearing an identical four-seat Vanden Plas body to the original racers and restored to the same specification.”

Bentley

The 12 cars will be hand-built by Bentley’s Mulliner team and an “incredible array of artisans from a number of automotive heritage specialists across the U.K.,” according to the automaker. Reproduction parts will be as accurate to the originals as possible, and Bentley even claims that many of the parts will be “crafted using the same techniques used in the 1920s.” Mulliner, the “world’s oldest coachbuilder,” has previously built 12 reproduction Bentley Blowers. Bentley has announced that production of the first Continuation Series Speed Six is expected to begin later this year.