Bentley 3 Litre

Bentley 3 Litre

Bentley

MarqueBentley
Production1921–1929 / 1,622 produced
Engine3.0 L OHC 4-valve I4

The Bentley 3 Litre is one of 62 Bentley models in the MotorJury library, the catalogue that sets out to hold every car ever made — production, prototype and concept alike. The record places its introduction in 1921. The photography on this page is hotlinked from Wikimedia Commons under an open licence, with the photographer credited on every frame.

The era it was born into

To read the Bentley 3 Litre properly it helps to place it in its decade. The 1920s were the vintage era, when coachbuilt bodies, six- and eight-cylinder engines and the first true luxury marques defined a golden age of craftsmanship. Any car launched into that world was shaped by it — by what materials, engineering and regulation allowed, and by what buyers of the day demanded. Its direct contemporaries in this catalogue, introduced within three years of it, include the British Motor Corporation Austin 12, the Alfa Romeo Alfa Romeo G1, the Fiat Fiat 520 — the cars a buyer of the period would actually have cross-shopped.

The numbers, read closely

On paper, the Bentley 3 Litre reads like this: the record lists its engine as 3.0 L OHC 4-valve I4. Every figure above is a manufacturer specification carried by the Wikipedia infobox or the open Wikidata record for this model — nothing on this page is estimated, and where a source is silent the row simply does not appear.

Its place in the Bentley story

Within Bentley's own catalogue the Bentley 3 Litre sits alongside the Bentley 3.5 Litre, the Bentley 4 Litre, the Bentley 4¼ Litre, the Bentley 4½ Litre. It was succeeded by the 4½ Litre. Design is credited to Walter Owen Bentley. Assembly is recorded at United Kingdom: Cricklewood.

How this catalogue works

This library is generated, verified and rebuilt from the open record on every deploy. The catalogue skeleton comes from Wikidata, specifications from Wikipedia's infoboxes under CC BY-SA, photography from Wikimedia Commons under each file's own licence, and the ownership data from United States federal safety records. Nothing is written by hand and nothing is invented: every fact on this page traces to a public source, and every page is rebuilt nightly as those sources improve. Errors in the source record will appear here too — and disappear the night the source is corrected.

Why concepts and prototypes are in the library

Most car databases stop at series production. This one deliberately does not, because concept cars, racing specials and cancelled prototypes are where the industry thinks out loud — the ideas tested in public years before they reach a showroom. Holding them beside the production cars they inspired makes the lineage legible: nearly every landmark road car in this library has a concept ancestor somewhere in the catalogue, and the connections run through the era links on every page.

From catalogue to ownership

What this page cannot yet tell you is what the Bentley 3 Litre costs to live with — that is a different dataset. MotorJury's ownership verdicts are computed from federal complaint and recall records plus EPA economy data, published per model year as the nightly ingest reaches each car. If this model was sold in the United States, its years will surface in the ownership database; browse it live or price any car yourself with the true-cost calculator.

Specifications

Body styleas arranged with coachbuilder by customer
Wheelbase108 in / 117.5 in / 130 in
Length4,040 mm
AssemblyUnited Kingdom: Cricklewood
DesignerWalter Owen Bentley
Successor4½ Litre
Catalogue IDQ2439434

Specifications come from the Wikipedia infobox for this model (CC BY-SA) and the open Wikidata record, and are shown only where a source actually carries them — nothing here is estimated. Figures are manufacturer specifications, not measured results.

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What it costs to run

Ownership verdicts are computed from NHTSA complaint and recall records plus EPA economy data, re-priced for your country. Verdicts are published per model year as the data is ingested — browse them live, or open the true-cost calculator to price any year yourself.

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Rivals of its era

Contemporaries from other marques, introduced within three years of this car.