Lot 302: 1955 Bentley Sl Saloon

This unique Bentley S1 saloon was one of two displayed on the stand of coachbuilders Freestone & Webb at the 1955 Earls Court Motor Show. Based in Willesden, North London, the highly respected firm of Freestone & Webb had long been associated with quality marques including Bentley, Rolls-Royce and Mercedes-Benz, and was one of six coachbuilders displaying designs on the new Silver Cloud/S1 chassis at the ’55 Show. Founded in 1923, the company had been taken over by H R Owen in 1955 and would cease coachbuilding in 1956, although it continued in business as a dealer. Chassis number ‘B486AN’ is from the first series produced, prior to the introduction of power-assisted steering, and is one of only 145 coachbuilt S1s out of a total production run of 3,072 cars. Plated ‘FW 1956’ for the 1955 Motor Show, in which guise it is pictured in Rodney Steel’s book, ‘Bentley - the Cars from Crewe’, the car was sold new via Jack Olding & Co, of London W1 to first private owner, Dudley Whitting, of St John’s Wood, London NW8 and registered ‘RYP 333’. Its second owner was a Mr Cannell, of Downhills Road, Blundellsands near Liverpool and the third a Mrs Duncan on the Isle of Skye, who owned the car in September 1966. By the mid-1990s, ‘B486AN’ had been sold to the USA, where it was owned in 1996 by a Thomas Bassman, of Hallandale, Florida. The subsequent owner purchased the vehicle from Gull Wing Motor Cars Inc, of Long Island City, New York and took it with him to Australia, where it was purchased by the vendor at Bonhams & Goodman’s Sydney Sale on 19th November 2006 (Lot 3). An early-series coachbuilt Bentley S1 with Motor Show history, ‘B486AN’ will be of considerable interest to serious enthusiasts of the marque, with the knowledge that their restoration efforts will reward them with a truly unique motor car.