Bentley Mk VI and R Type: the first complete Bentley, and the fastest four-seater on earth (1946–1955)

Austerity Britain seems an unlikely birthplace for a new kind of Bentley, but 1946 produced exactly that: the Mk VI, the first Bentley ever sold as a complete car, factory body and all, and the machine that carried Crewe into the post-war world. Its R Type successor then produced the family’s summit, the Continental fastback that was the fastest four-seater on earth. Between the £18,000 saloon and the seven-figure Continental, the Bentley Mk6 family spans the widest value arc of any single model line we cover.

The first complete Bentley

Before 1946, buying a Bentley meant buying a chassis and commissioning a body; the Mk VI changed the marque’s whole nature with its factory standard steel saloon, pressed by outside suppliers and finished at Crewe to Bentley standards. The refined 4¼-litre inlet-over-exhaust six gave silent, effortless urge, the chassis carried the company’s first factory warranty on a complete car, and about 5,200 were sold to 1952, a Bentley record. The coachbuilders still dressed bare chassis for the faithful, Mulliner, Park Ward, James Young and Freestone & Webb all serving, but the future had arrived wearing factory steel.

R Type: the finishing school

The 1952 R Type answered the Mk VI’s one criticism, the stubby boot, with an elegant lengthened tail, standardised the big-bore 4.6-litre engine, and offered an automatic gearbox to the chauffeur classes. About 2,320 were built to 1955, visually blurring with their predecessor ahead of the rear doors and improving on it everywhere behind. As the last Bentley before the S-series twinned the marque with the Silver Cloud, the R Type closed the family’s most independent post-war chapter, and today the two models trade as one market with the R Type’s practicality earning a modest premium.

The Continental: 120 mph in a dinner jacket

In 1952 Crewe and H.J. Mulliner distilled the R Type into legend: the Continental, a wind-tunnel-shaped alloy fastback over a tuned, lightened chassis, capable of nearly 120 mph with four aboard, the fastest four-seater car in the world. Just 208 were built for the era’s most discerning buyers, and the model’s beauty and rarity settled its destiny: R Type Continentals trade in the millions, set records for post-war Bentleys, and lent their name to everything fast Crewe built afterwards. The standard cars bask in the association at a five-hundredth of the price.

The specials culture

The Mk VI’s afterlife is unique: standard steel bodies rusted faster than the superb chassis beneath, so from the fifties onward derelict saloons donated their running gear to vintage-style specials, open tourers in the Cricklewood manner built by enthusiasts and professional houses alike. The culture thrives today, hundreds of chassis living second lives at hillclimbs and tours, and divides opinion the market has learned to price: originality carries the premium, good specials trade on build quality, and every buyer should establish which history a car actually carries.

Living with the first Crewe Bentley

The Mk VI rewards its owners with the era’s most usable grandeur: the six-cylinder engine is unstressed and long-lived, the famous one-shot centralised lubrication system eases chassis care when kept working, and the specialist and club network, among the deepest for any post-war British car, supplies parts and pattern knowledge readily. Fuel consumption in the mid-teens and stately tyre bills are the honest running costs; the great expense lives in bodywork, which is why the buying advice never changes. Tours, rallies and the club calendar keep Mk VIs genuinely driven, and the survivors’ variety, saloon, coachbuilt, woodie or special, makes every gathering of them a small concours of histories.

What a Mk VI is like to drive

The Mk VI drives like a gentleman’s club making progress: the six delivers its sufficient power in silence, the right-hand gear lever snicks through a gate of surprising precision, and the chassis, with the company’s famous centralised lubrication easing maintenance, rides with dignity ahead of its era. R Types add touring ease; Continentals add another dimension entirely. Among 1940s luxury survivors nothing combines usability, club support and sheer presence at the money, which is why so many are actually driven.

Buying a Mk VI or R Type today

Body and identity decide: standard steel saloons rust in sills, wings, doors and boot floors, coachbuilt cars add timber-frame concerns, and restoration outruns most purchase prices, so sound metal outranks mechanical niggles. Establish originality, saloon, coachbuilt or special, against chassis records the clubs hold well. Engines and running gear are strong and supported by an excellent specialist network. The first complete Bentley remains the marque’s most accessible classic, with the Continental shining unreachably above. The full record, 567 recorded sales spanning a forty-two-fold gap from a standard steel saloon to an H J Mulliner Continental, is on the page covering what a Mk VI and R Type sell for.

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