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Forget the sat-nav and all those high-tech, brightly lit instruments. If you're looking for a car with true dashboard derring-do, then this specially modified 1924 Bentley 3/8 litre sports roadster is the vehicle for you.

Click here for details of dashboard

With more knobs, dials and buttons per square inch than your average aircraft, this classic car requires a driver with a sure hand, fast reflexes, and an ability to monitor a terrifying array of instruments all at the same time — and that's just to get the car started. But as the dashboard proves, this is no ordinary vintage car. With a top speed of 170 miles per hour, this customised Bentley could give many modern cars a run for their money.

Bought in 1928, by an Australian marine engineer names John 'Jumbo' Goddard, for the princely sum of £350 (about £15,000 today), the car was altered by Goddard in 1954 when he replaced the original three-litre engine with a Bentley eight-litre motor he had bought second-hand after the war. The car was also given a new sporty body and hydraulic brakes — a necessity considering the astonishing speed the vehicle was now capable of.

Its specifications are unique for a car of its type: 550bhp, eight-litre inline six-cylinder engine with dual SU carburettors and twin Garrett turbochargers, heavy-duty Bentley live axels and four wheel hydraulic brakes.

It was one of the 98 vintage, rare and valuable cars auctioned by RM Auctions this week at a special London sale, including a 1955 Ford Thunderbird formerly owned by John Travolta, and the 1963 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Sydre driven by Cameron Diaz in the Charlie's Angels movies.

The unique Bentley attracted bids of £475,000, but failed to sell.

Any new owner should take heed, however. With such a complicated process of ignition, it takes close to five minutes to start the car, and at high speeds the front has a terrifying tendency to take off. So fast and furious is this motor that Jumbo Goddard's wife once warned him: "If you drive that thing again, I'm going to divorce you."