The Bentley, a 1926 Bentley 3-Litre Red Label Speed tourer, sold for the equivalent of £613,903 including the premium, a record for the model at auction. The perfect car with which to mark Bentley’s centenary next year? Definitely.
One of 513 Speed models, and with a rare aluminium Vanden Plas body, the beautifully proportioned 3-Litre is said to be exceptionally original and in superb condition – as you might expect after a three-year ground-up restoration. There are bills for that that total £500,000…
From an archetypal British vintage tourer to… what was billed as the most famous Bugatti in the Southern Hemisphere. The 1935 Type 57 Tourist Trophy Torpedo lived for 79 years down under, running in the 1957 Australian Grand Prix and going on to survive what Bonhams says was not always a sympathetic life within the Australian road racing scene.
The 120mph sports racer, with straight-eight twin-cam 3.3-litre engine giving an amazing for-the-time 160bhp, started out in life racing in Europe. Earl Howe brought it home third in the 1935 RAC Tourist Trophy at Ards in Ulster. Later it was bought by the owner-racer Pierre Bouillin who as ‘Pierre Levegh’ drove the works Mercedes SLR into the history books for the worst motorsport accident ever at Le Mans in 1955.