The Bentley Speed Six is a as arranged with coachbuilder by customer from Bentley, built from 1926 to 1930, the vintage years, when coachbuilders still shaped most of what was sold. Under the bonnet: 6.5 . Walter Owen Bentley drew it.
Where it came from
The Bentley 6½ Litre and the high-performance Bentley Speed Six were rolling chassis produced by Bentley from 1926 to 1930. The Speed Six, introduced in 1928, became the most successful racing Bentley. Two Bentley Speed Sixes chassis became known as the Blue Train Bentleys after their owner Woolf Barnato in March 1930 "raced" the French Blue Train which departed Cannes at 17:45 and, after a stop in Paris, was scheduled to arrive in Calais at 15:24 when Barnato already was in his club in London.
Under the skin
Power comes from 6.5 . 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 132 in / 138 in / 140.5 in / 144 in / 145.5 in / 150 in / 151.5 in / 152.5 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
In context
Its family tree is legible: its successor was the Bentley 8 Litre; assembly was at Cricklewood, United Kingdom. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Pontiac Pontiac, the British Motor Corporation Riley Nine, the Mercedes-Benz W02 — show what else the money bought that year. Nearby in the Bentley catalogue sit the Armoured Arnage and the Bentley 3 Litre.
What it costs now
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Bentley Speed Six 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.