The 69th annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, August 2019.

"Hello Robert, this is about the car's photos (below) featured in the Queste Magazine, Winter 1999 issue. I am really hoping to find out the owner listed in the article. I have been having a hard time tracing the ownership history for this vehicle so I am hoping the article might answer some questions."

Readers are requested to contribute information. — VintageBentleys.org

Bentley Blower Meet, 2010

In England in 2006 / Owned by a BDC member

These photographs were taken just prior to tour from Yorkshire to LeMans Race Track in 1999.

This car was owned by J.C. Medley from 1937 to 1940.

Below is the text of a letter written by J.C. Medley to the BDC in 1963. It was carried on pages nos. 116 and 117 of the Bentley Drivers Club Review, October 1963.

Dear Sir,

Subject: Mistaken Identity?

I enclose a very scratched photograph of 4 1/2 Bentley GN 6087. I owned this car from 1937 to 1940. I bought it from H.M. Bentley & Partners on the advice of my old friend the late Kit Baker-Carr. I have been looking for years for the negative of this photo as I could not remember the registration number and wanted to trace the present owner. I found the much battered negative last week and this enlargement is the result. The body was a very close-coupled sports four-seater, black and red upholstery and hair lining in red on the body.

Now here is the extraordinary thing. GN 6087 appears in Stanley Sedgwick's memoir on the Blowers as a 4 1/2 Supercharged belonging to C.G. Jackson in the U.S.A.. the Blower number is "not known". It also appears that the original engine in my car is now in the Pacey-Hassan having been changed in 1936 a year before I bought it — a fact which I do not remember in the registration book. Can it be that between 1940 and 1957 (when Jackson bought it) someone put in a Blower — GN 6087 was certainly not an original supercharged Bentley in 1939? The only peculiarities about this car which I remember were: 1) the Ki-Gass was removed and I had two electric pumps mounted on the near side chassis member under the bonnet; 2) I had 6 1/2 litre controls on the steering wheel with the mixture control as well as throttle and ignition. The car was a superb starter in any conditions.

The engine in 1939 / 40 was good but not exceptional and I would have doubted if at that date it would have stood up to a Blower. The D-type gear-box was all right.

Yours faithfully,
J.C. Medley

Kilnbank, Oxon

[The old company's original service record book for the Blowers shows GN 6087 as a 4 1/2 Supercharged. A pending summary of 3 and 41/2 records may throw light on this mystery. — Ed, The Bentley Drivers Club Review, October 1963]

Blower 4 1/2, chassis MS3932 registered GN6087, with its original high-sided Vanden Plas four-seater body, a sister car to GO2641

(Four Bentleys from the Klein Collection in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, in the 1960s. Nearest the camera is 3 litre Vanden Plas Speed Model YR5725, chassis LT1579, rebuilt to Kensington Gardens concours standard by Dick Moss. Next another Vanden Plas car, this time a 1928 4 1/2 litre chassis FT3210 delivered new to L. Du Pont Copeland, and blower 4 1/2 EU919 with Birkin replica body by Townshend. Finally a second blower 4 1/2, chassis MS3932 registered GN6087, with its original high-sided Vanden Plas four-seater body, a sister car to GO2641.)

The first 25 production Supercharged 4½ Litre cars where Chassis Nos. SM3901-SM3925, all with "smooth-case" blowers. The next 25 were Chassis Nos. MS3926-MS3950 and had "rib-case" blowers.

Production Blower Bentleys had handbrake handles made from rectangular stainless steel, whereas the five 4½ litre race cars for Tim Birkin had the "H" section handle, but were drilled for lightness.

Photographer - Ian Britton

Chassis MS3932 as Reg. S 3926