Bentley – R-Type Continental (1954)

Anybody during the 1950s who wanted to cruise along boulevards in aristocratic style, at speed and with elegant flair would have made an excellent choice with a Bentley R-Continental. Known as the Flying Carpet because of the superlative comfort it offered, this drophead coupé was bodied by H. J. Mulliner as an impressively powerful fastback. This was the form the car was ordered in by a customer from Lisbon. In May 1954, he took delivery of the car and drove it until he had a major mishap two years later. When he was trying to lose his nephew driving a Porsche, he overturned the Bentley. His plan was for H. J. Mulliner to transform the badly damaged bodywork into a drop- head coupé. However, the price tag was too high and Chapron was given the order instead.

Regrettably the result was rather idiosyncratic and departed significantly from the original draw- ings. Nevertheless, the US actor Kurt Kreuger – who originally came from Germany – purchased the car in 1961. Later on, the drophead had an interlude in a Swiss collection before it returned to the USA. A decision was then taken in 2005 to rebuild the rear half of the open-top Bentley exactly as it had been conceived originally by H. J. Mulliner.