Continental soon to drift again

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Bentley R-Type Continentals aren’t too common, so when an unmolested three-owner car emerges from a dusty hiding place after a decade and a half, it’s something we like to share with you. What’s more: of the 218 R-types with that great fastback body hammered out by HJ Mulliner, this one may well have been the only with purple as its original colour. Yes. Purple. That may seem very Paris Hilton to you and me, but it is said to have been the racing colour of its original owner, a mister RD Weatherall of South Wales.

Surprisingly, the name doesn’t ring many bells in our files and on the world wide web. There’s just the mention of a RD Weatherall in a 1930 copy of MotorSport magazine, which wrote he was at the time planning to make an attempt to break the speed record on the water in a 500cc outboard motor boat. Did he ever do it? We can only guess. But he must have been a bit of a character, driving (racing?) his purple Continental R with vanity plates wearing his initials…

Unfortunately the car’s next owner decided it looked better in plain white, but then he was a doctor from Yorkshire. The Bentley’s third and current owner kept it that way before laying it up on blocks some 15 years ago. And it seems he didn’t do much more then just that. Now, new owner, if you do decide to restore this car, please bring it back in its original shade. It will be cracking, no doubt. Barons Auctioneers is selling the car at their Sandown Park sale on 21 April.

(Words Jeroen Booij, picture courtesy Barons)
    

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