Bentley's 100mph Executive Express

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Today, not enough people know that there was more to Bentley in the Vintage era than a string of Le Mans wins, but the Eight Litre, which was Cricklewood’s swansong, was also its zenith. The first of the great 100mph gentleman’s expresses, it combined luxury to rival Rolls-Royce with performance and a sort of louche character which put it in a class of its own.

It was precisely this character which appealed to the first owner of chassis YR5089, one of 12 Eight Litres bodied by Freestone & Webb. Originally sold in 1931 to Reginald Beaumont Thomas – a Gatsby-esque tinplate heir with a penchant for glamorous women. Painted in a jazzy coffee-and-cream duotone, it immediately distinguished itself as runner-up in the ‘Most Distinctive’ class at the Eastbourne Concours. After a year, Thomas sold it to the Orange family, wealthy Northumberland bus operators, with whom it might be seen pulling up outside the palm tree-flanked porch of an exclusive golf club, or going on holidays de luxe with their Westchester caravan.

Later repainted a more sober black, it was reputedly used by Lord Beaverbrook during the war, preceding a succession of appreciative owners who have taken care of it to the present. One of the most striking formal-bodied examples of an Eight Litre, Mick Walsh sings its praises in the August issue of The Automobile, on sale now.

Words by Zack Stiling, Photographs by Tony Baker

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