Beschreibung:

*4½-liter inline six *Rally prepared with factory assistance *Ordered new by Mike Couper *1953 Monte Carlo Rally Concours de Confort class winner *Featured in Couper's book Rallying to Monte Carlo *A competition car for the sporting gentleman This amazingly well documented R-Type Bentley has a remarkable early history. It is the actual car campaigned in the 1953 Monte Carlo Rally by one of the very few British sportsmen who could lay claim – though he would never have dreamed of doing so – to being supremely well qualified as a postwar 'Bentley Boy'. Mike Couper was what British journalists of the period would have described as being "a man of substance". He ran a considerable business, was comfortably wealthy, and he was highly respected committee member of both the British Automobile Association and the British Racing Drivers' Club, and a friend characterized him as being "the type of man whom a London cabby automatically calls "sir". A lifelong car enthusiast, he ran a major motor distributorship and at one stage around 1929-30 he had been in partnership with Sir Henry 'Tim' Birkin as the Birkin & Couper business which manufactured the illustrious line of 'Blower' Bentley supercharged 4½-liter racing and road cars. But Brooklands racing ended for Couper by the close of the 1938 season. He missed competition and sought a new challenge, so when Jack Scott Sales Manager of Sunbeam-Talbot, suggested he should enter the winter-time Monte Carlo Rally of 1939, he jumped at the chance. 'The Monte', as it was known, was absolutely the Indy 500 of wintertime motoring in the UK and Europe. With eight starting points, Athens in Greece, Bucharest in Rumania, Tallin in Russia, Palermo in Sicily, Stavanger in Norway, Umea in Sweden, John o'Groats in Scotland and Amsterdam in Holland, all routes down to Monte Carlo on the Mediterranean coast at Monaco were of roughly equal length. They ultimately combined onto a common road, but to avoid losing points competitors had to maintain contemporarily high average speeds. Final eliminating tests were tough and against the clock, ending ultimately in a Concours de Confort. This finale saw all surviving cars valeted and polished, and judged on detail finish and forethought in their equipment. Mike Couper's Hillman won its class and the burly, extremely convivial English gentleman driver had caught The Monte Bug.... The first postwar Monte Carlo Rally in 1949 then saw Mike Couper enter a brand-new Bentley Mark VI Steel Saloon, in which he was accompanied by fellow sporting gentlemen Leslie Seyd – a wine importer - and Dr Melville Balfour – who was both a medical practitioner and a wine merchant. You get the picture? They had a splendid time in the Bentley carefully prepared for them by the Rolls-Bentley factory – and again Mike Couper's entry won the Concours de Confort! Back home he submitted a full report upon the event to Rolls-Royce. Upon a visit there he "murmured my thanks and suggested it would be pleasant to go to Monte Carlo again in 1950". "Could be – come and see us about next October' they smiled." At the London Motor Show he chose a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith Sports Saloon by Park Ward, and again won the Concours de Confort, despite having collided en route with a French camion and having a crushed front fender concours-repaired in 16 hours! For the 1951 Monte Carlo Rally, ran to strict stock rules, he chose another Bentley Standard Steel Saloon yet saved 112lbs weight and had the engine "unobtrusively" tuned. And yet again he won the Grand Prix award in the Concours de Confort - and in 1952 with yet another fresh Bentley he maintained this startling 100 per cent record. And so to 1953 when Mike Couper, Pat Fillingham and Peter Tabor formed the intrepid gentleman trio who crewed B68SR – UK Registration Number 'PLG 728' – now offered here. The car had the 4 ½-liter engine and large luggage trunk and equipment carried on this annual snow-bound adventure included two spare wheels fitted wit