The winner of the 24 hours of Le Mans in both 1929 and 1930, in addition to a number of other races, the Bentley Speed Six remains the brand’s most successful racecar ever. To celebrate that legacy, it is building a limited number of new models to the exact specifications of the 93-year-old car.
The first example is now ready to be shown off to the public, and will make its debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this weekend. Known as “Car Zero,” it will not be sold to a customer, and instead serves as a test vehicle as part of Bentley’s development program.
Only Bentley’s second pre-war continuation series, the Speed Six benefits from the lessons the automaker learned while making its first, the Blower Bentley. The result of countless hours of research, the team behind the cars made use of as many original drawings and documents as possible, in addition to one of the original Speed Six race cars kept in the Bentley Heritage Collection.
Read: Bentley Gives Birth To Blower Continuation Series ‘Car Zero’ Prototype
The continuation cars are specifically designed to emulate the 1930 car, as specified for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The team used the original mechanics notes from the era to find all of the details that were improved between 1929 and 1930 to help it defend its victory and made it such a legend.
Making use of a 6.5-liter six-cylinder engine that was created using 600 new parts, early dyno testing shows that the continuation car makes 205 hp (153 kW/208 PS), which is within 5 hp (3.7 kW/5 PS), or 2.4 percent, of the 1930, race-tuned engine.
Trimmed in authentic materials and offered in five period-correct paint colors, the example going to Goodwood is finished in Parsons Napier Green with a tan leather interior. And it will now be run hard and put away wet as Bentley seeks to ensure that it is ready for customers.
Over the next six months, Car Zero will undergo a test program that represents the equivalent of 21,748 miles (35,000 km) of road driving and 4,971 miles (8,000 km) of track driving. Each customer car will then take 10 months to build.
That’s why it will take Bentley until the end of 2025 to deliver all 12 customer cars – each of which has already been spoken for. That will give prospective owners plenty of time to spec their cars out with the help of Mulliner, Bentley’s in-house customization department.
