Coys Auction
Fine Motorcars & The Jaguar Legend
Blenheim Palace
Woodstock
Oxfordshire OX20 1PX
Saturday 18th July 2009
Registration Number: YM1796 Chassis Number: 356
The Rabagliati 3 Litre is recognised as one of the milestones in the sporting history of the motor car. Chassis 356 was the first ‘Red Label’ Bentley produced and it was this model that was to lay the foundations of Bentley’s financial success. The ‘Red Label’ became the envy of sporting motorists and race followers the world over.
The final specification of the first ‘Red Label’, short chassis, speed model (generally known in the works as ‘speed one’) was signed off by W.O. himself in July 1923, and the running chassis No 356, engine No 357, was completed in late August of that year and was put on show in Bentley’s showrooms in Hanover Street, W1.
Apparently the future ownership of this rather special car was hotly contested. A number of famous sporting motorists of the period, such as J.D. Benjafield, were a