Bentley does not build many cars like the Bentley Mark VI: a 4-door Sedan (automobile) / saloon / 2-door Sedan (automobile) / saloon / 2-door drophead coupé / chassis only (for coachbuilt bodies) with -litre 4.3 L I6, built from 1946 to 1952 in a decade split by war, when civilian production stopped and restarted.
Where it came from
The Bentley Mark VI is an automobile from Bentley which was produced from 1946 until 1952. The Mark VI 4-door standard steel sports saloon was the first post-war luxury car from Bentley. Announced in May 1946 and produced from 1946 to 1952 it was also both the first car from Rolls-Royce with all-steel coachwork and the first complete car assembled and finished at their factory. These very expensive cars were a genuine success; long-term, their weakness lay in the inferior steels forced on them by government's post-war controls. In 1944 Rolls-Royce executive W. A. Robotham saw that there would be limited postwar demand for a Rolls-Royce or Bentley rolling chassis with a body from a specialist coachbuilder, and negotiated with the Pressed Steel Company a contract for a general-purpose body to carry four people in comfort on their postwar chassis behind a Rolls-Royce or Bentley radiator.
Though he stretched the demand to 2000 per year, Pressed Steel were "nonplussed" by the small demand. Chassis continued to be supplied to independent coachbuilders, which produced four-door saloon, two-door saloon and drophead coupe models. Out of the coachbuilt cars the most sought after now are the 241 cars built by H.J. Mulliner. A single 1950 Standard Steel bodied MkVI chassis B39HP registration LLP 769 was supplied new converted internally by Mulliner into a six-seater limousine supplied to L.S. Lambourne Esq. The ex factory price was £2595 plus £140 for the outsourced conversion by Mulliner of the front seat to accommodate the wind up glass division in the custom bench seat. This first B
Under the skin
Under the skin sits -litre 4.3 L I6; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. Kerb weight is 4078 lb. The gearbox is a 4-speed manual. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 120 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
In context
Where it sits in Bentley's history is not in doubt: the Mark V came before it; the R Type followed it; it was built at Crewe, England (Bentley Crewe), United Kingdom. On a showroom list of its day it stood against the Citroën 2CV, the Porsche 356, the Chevrolet Bel Air. Nearby in the Bentley catalogue sit the Armoured Arnage and the Bentley 3 Litre.
The money
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Bentley Mark VI has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.