The most special old Bentley is for sale in Bentley’s most special centenary year and Goodwood has been chosen as the place for its new keeper to come forward. With Old Mother Gun – officially, the 1927 Bentley Jackson Special – having held us in awe so often, Goodwood is an appropriate place for the Bentley sale of the century.
A regular racer at both FOS and the Goodwood Revival, this most well-known of all Bentley specials was last with us in 2018 when the Duke of Richmond selected it as one of the 25 greatest cars to mark 25 years of the Festival of Speed. Its credentials for such an honour are unimpeachable.
It was the first 4.5-litre ever made. In only its second race, the 24-hour Grand Prix de Paris at the Circuit de la Sarthe, it won – by over 80 miles. As a works car with Captain Woolf Barnato (who coined its “Mother Gun” name) it was first at Le Mans in 1928. And then second a year later with Jack Dunfee.