The full name of today’s Nice Price or No Dice candidate is the Bentley Mark VI 4-door standard steel sports saloon. That’s a mouthful, but hopefully, the car’s price won’t prove too hard to swallow.
Since 1998, Bentley has been owned by Volkswagen, and shortly after that purchase, VW attempted an up-market push to better align the lower echelon brand with its fancy-pants new British brother. Part of that push was the 2004 VW Passat W8 we looked at yesterday. The overly complex and very expensive to repair engine, along with an AWD chassis and all the luxury accouterments VW could throw at it, makes for a weirdly compelling car even now, two decades later. A modest $2,750 price tag and the promise that nothing was amiss with our car led to some of you being willing to overlook its potential for impending doom. The result was a narrow 54 percent Nice Price win.
Engineer Walter Owen Bentley founded his namesake car company in 1919. Over the next decade, he saw it go bankrupt twice and finally be sold to arch rival Rolls Royce in 1931. Bentley left the company four years later, as by that time the brand had been fully absorbed into Rolls.
This 1948 Bentley Mark VI was the first post-WWII car to carry the Flying B and the first series-built complete car ever offered by Rolls Royce. Prior to the Mark VI all of Rolls’ cars had been sold as rolling chassis’ with coach-built bodywork. To save the company money, the Mark VI shares its ladder frame chassis and suspension with the Rolls Royce Silver Wraith. Atop is an all-steel body manufactured by Pressed Steel in Cowley and shipped to the Rolls factory in Crewe for paint and assembly.
Power for the Bentley is made by a four-and-a-quarter cc straight six with an F head valve train and two SU H4 side-draught carburetors. Bentley never offered official power ratings for the engine, but the common thought is that it makes around 130 horses. A four-speed all-synchromesh manual transmission was fitted with the gear lever on RHD cars such as this sprouting from the floor on the right side of the driver’s seat. That require a bit of gymnastics to step over when entering or exiting the car. In total, 4,001 Mark VIs were built, with 3,171 of them being factory Pressed Steel-bodied cars and the rest being coach-built specials.
According to the ad, this dealer-offered Mark VI has come from long-term ownership where it apparently sat for a good long time. The ad claims the car runs when gas is introduced to the carb float bowls but that the fuel system will need a full goingover to make it run properly. Per the pictures, it appears that the last time this car was registered for the road was in 1999, so all systems—cooling, brakes, lubrication, etc.—should be addressed. Fortunately, despite being a Bentley, these are fairly simple cars and were built extremely well so it shouldn’t be too daunting a task to bring it back to road-worthiness.
Aesthetically, there’s reason to do so as well. The car looks terrific, and while the ad notes rust, that appears to be little more than surface corrosion on the chassis and exhaust. All the main drivetrain components—engine, gearbox, and rear end—seem to be weeping their various oils, but that’s pretty much par for the course on any old British car.
Things look pretty good in the well-appointed cabin as well. The leather is a bit age-worn, and the front passenger seat has a tear that will require some work, but it’s otherwise complete and without major flaws. And yes, both front and rear doors are center-hinged. It has a clean title and reportedly just 6,684 miles on the clock.
The asking price for this Rip Van Winkle Bentley is $13,950. Does that sound fair, considering the car’s condition and presentation? Or does the work required to bring it back to life feel unbefitting of such a price or of a Bentley owner?
You decide!
Los Angeles, California, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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