The Bentley Speed Six is a vital model in the brand’s history due to one winning the 1929 and 1930 24 Hours of Le Mans. The company now revives this classic by introducing the Speed Six Continuation Series by Mulliner at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. It plans to build 12 of them for customers, and all of them already have buyers.
The Speed Six packs a 6.5-liter inline-six engine. Dyno testing shows the powerplant making 205 horsepower, which is within 5 hp of the original competition-spec mills from 1930.
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The Speed Six Continuation Series is as close as you can get to the original car. Bentley uses a mix of original drawings and mechanic’s notes from the archives. Plus, it has an actual 1930 24 Hours of Le Mans competitor and an example from the automaker’s own collection.
The Speed Six on display at Goodwood is what Bentley calls Car Zero. It’s the engineering development vehicle for the program, and the automaker isn’t selling the vehicle to a customer. Instead, the machine is for durability and track testing. This car has additional instruments for recording data.
Bentley will start building the first customer car in October. Each one will take about 10 months to complete. Buyers will be able to work with Mulliner to tailor the cars to their exact specifications, including a personal fitting service. The company expects to produce all 12 by the end of 2025.
The Speed Six debuted in 1928 as a sportier version of the 6½ Litre model. The road-going version featured two SU carburetors and a higher compression ratio, boosting the output to 180 hp from the standard 147 hp. Bentley made 182 street versions. The racing variant had even higher compression to push the total power to 200 hp.
The Speed Six is Bentley’s second continuation special. It introduced a revival of the 1929 4½-litre Blower in 2019 and made just 12 of them.