Lot Ended
Description
From a deceased estate; well-maintained with a large history file;
previous owner for 25 years; nice transferable number plate
Imposing
enough to be chauffeured in, yet handy enough to be owner-driven when the need
was pressing or the mood was right, the MkVI was the pinnacle of boardroom
ambition in ‘50s Britain. At £4,500 it was three times the price of
Britain’s only other 100mph luxury saloon, the Jaguar MkVII, and although it
might not have been three times the car, its sheer quality was beyond
dispute and there was a three-year waiting list to get one.
It would
therefore have been a special day indeed for Mr Parsons, owner of the
Premier Screw Company in Leicester, when he finally got behind the wheel of his
brand new MkVI in February 1949, the Bentley Motors Ltd delivery note still
nestling in the history file. Finished in Dual Grey with a light blue hide
interior, FRY 926 must have proved its worth many times over in the years that
followed and in fact the car has outlived the Premier Screw business which got
swallowed up by the GKN empire in 1966.
Little
is known of FRY’s subsequent history but by 1978 it was with a Mr Andrews of
Sevenoaks who had the brightwork rechromed and areas of the bodywork restored in
1992 when the odometer was showing some 26,500 miles. The previous owner
acquired the car from Rolls-Royce and Bentley specialists Colbrook of Stilton,
Peterborough, in January 1996 for the sum of
£10,000.
A long-standing member of the Bentley Driver's Club
(which he had joined in 1947), he bought the MkVI to celebrate his and his
wife's 70th birthdays. Sharing garage space with a 1923 Bentley 3-Litre which he
had owned for the preceding 45 years or more, FRY had the advantage of being
snug and weatherproof and over the next 15 years it provided sterling
service on numerous BDC events, including several Continental tours, covering
some 32,000 miles. For the next 10 years it was very little
used.
A good file of invoices attest
to regular upkeep including a major bout of expenditure in 2007/2008 (at
52,500 miles) when the engine was completely stripped and rebuilt with a
reground crankshaft, new main bearing shells plus much else besides, the
machining being done by Belcher Engineering of Diss and the assembly by the
rather splendidly named Foppe G d’Hane of Woodbridge. [Other undated invoices
show that the engine had previously received a new set of pistons plus much
other work but the writing is very hard to read].
The brakes and suspension were also overhauled at around the same
time by Harvey Wash Ltd of Woodbridge and the bodywork (which had previously
been restored in 1998 including a bare metal repaint) was also smartened up and
the cavities waxoil injected by VW Anticks of Woodbridge. The radiator was
recored in 2009.
When the previous owner passed
away in 2021, the car was driven some 200 miles to Brightwells by his son who
reported that it drove beautifully, the only fault he noted being the fuel gauge
which needed a good thump from underneath to unstick the needle from
empty.
The current owner acquired the car in
our June 2021 auction and has only covered around 200 miles in it since, the
odometer now showing 58,881 miles. Sadly, he too has now passed away so it is up
for sale again.
Starting promptly and running well as we have moved it around on
site, it is supplied with a large history file, an original owner’s handbook and
all its large and small tools. It also retains its original, eye-catching
Leicester-issue number plate, FRY 926, which is transferable and no doubt has a
value of its own.
For more information
contact James on 07970 309907 or email james.dennison@brightwells.com