Description
The combined Rolls-Royce and Bentley Works suspended motor car production in 1940, when they re-tooled to support the war effort. The Bentley Mark VI Standard Steel Saloon was the first model offered at the return of peace, when motor car production resumed. The cost of the new Bentley Mark VI Standard Steel Saloon was £2,345, including purchase tax. This was a considerable sum when one considers that the average annual wage in England in 1948 was £375. The luxurious car was powered by a new six-cylinder F-Head engine (with overhead intake and side-mounted exhaust valves), and despite its weight of 1,814 kilograms, it was capable of achieving 95 mph.
About 80 percent of the Bentley Mk VI chassis carried the surprisingly elegant, although heavy, standard steel body, which was similar to the late pre-war Mark V Park Ward four-door saloon. However, the new Mark VI saloons did not have the panache of the wildly successful Bentley “Silent Sports Cars” of the 1930s, the 3½- and 4¼-Litres, and the Mark V models, nor were the standard cars as specialised as the massive Bentleys built at Cricklewood from 1919 to 1931, when Rolls-Royce acquired the Bentley marque. Although the car was quickly accepted by those well-heeled buyers who hungered for a new car after the long war years when only military vehicles were being produced, the company still offered, as they had before the war, a chassis-only option for those who wished to have a car designed to their specifications.
About 20 percent, exactly 999, of the total 5,201 Mark VI chassis were consigned to coachbuilders for special bodies. The total price of a custom-bodied model could easily double that of the chassis-only price, which was £1,785. The most commonly selected body makers for the Mark VI were H.J. Mulliner, Park Ward, James Young, and Hooper. Park Ward bodied 16 of these Fixed-Head Coupes (FHC) on the Mark VI chassis.
