1952 Bentley MkVI 4.5ltr

Finished in Garnet over Smoked Silver and rebuilt at the turn of the century, this 1952 Bentley MKVI further benefits from a tan leather interior and the late 4½ litre big-bore, full-flow oil system that exhales through a twin exhaust system.

The seller bought it from Terrence Morley, a friend of the business as well as being one of the most respected figures in the world of high-end classic cars. He was selling it on behalf of the owner who was – and we promise we aren’t making this up – completely on-brand by being a chaplain in the Royal Navy.

The seller continued to have it maintained by marque-experts Daniel Moore & Co with Nigel Sandell Ltd, who also happens to be a friend of his, taking over more recently; the Bentley world is a small place, and buying one gives you membership to one of the most exclusive – and nicest – clubs in the world.

Christened Brewster by the seller’s wife, ‘PHT 232’ is charmingly original having retained its HMV valve radio, sunroof, indicators, and rear spats, features that helped draw the owner to him: Having searched for more than a year to find the right car, he tells us that Brewster was the first example he found to have its soul still intact.

Doesn’t the Garnet over Smoked Silver coachwork look great? The Bentley MKVI is a good-looking car anyway, but this two-tone colour scheme emphasises its flowing lines beautifully.

The panels still align nicely too, with consistent gaps and no obvious damage such as dents and dinks. Squatting down and peering along the long flanks doesn’t show any serious ripples or other signs of aging; whereas some cars look great from a distance but unravel as you get closer, this one stands up to close scrutiny.

As does the lighting, which comprises a pair of Bentley-logo’d headlamps with a brace of auxiliary lamps mounted below them and a single spotlamp in the middle of the bumper that provides even greater coverage.

It’s a suite of lights that combines practicality with elegance, not least because all the lamp lenses – including the ones at the rear, which have been upgraded with the addition of a couple of extra ones below the bumper plus a high-level brake light – are free of chips, cracks and other damage.

The chromework is both extensive and lustrous; free of serious pitting, rust and other serious imperfections, it adds to the car’s considerable presence and leaves no-one in any doubt they’re in the presence of automotive royalty.

The 16-inch steel wheels are in a very good condition with only a little paint loss around their perimeter. Supplemented by an equally good set of painted and chromed hubcaps, they’re shod with matching 205/80R16 Continental Rain Expert 3 tyres, all of which have a good depth of tread left on them.

We will never get tired of telling you that experience shows that matching high-quality tyres are an infallible sign of a caring and mechanically sympathetic owner who is prepared to spend the appropriate amount in maintaining their car properly.

The details are sublime: The mirrors are mounted on the front wings, thus avoiding the blindspots door-mounted mirrors suffer from; the fuel filler flap is secured using a genuine Yale lock, and opening it reveals the most beautifully made brass petrol cap we can recall seeing; and the front doors pivot from the B-pillar, thus enabling the driver and passenger to get in and out of the Bentley with uncommon elegance.

As for flaws and imperfections, the lower edge of the offside rear spat is starting to rust, and the nearside rear spat is chipped and scratched. The nearside rear panel next to the boot is also scratched and the boot lip is chipped.

The nearside bonnet panel is chipped and has started to rust, and the paint on the bonnet and scuttle’s horizontal surfaces is cracked, as is the paint on both front wings. The driver’s door has some vertical marks on it, the paint on the offside rear light surround is flaking, the rear of the nearside sill is rusty, the sunroof seal has perished, and the offside rear door has glue stains on it.

A good place to start would be to treat the paintwork to a professional mop and polish to remove the swirls and then reassess after you’ve lived with the Bentley for a while.

The interior is wonderfully decadent featuring the usual suspects of chrome, leather, and wood all of which have been designed and installed with such care and attention as to ensure that no one gets into the cabin without letting out a small gasp of appreciation.

This one’s been looked after too; November 2008 saw the rear seat cushion and one armrest being restored by DTM Coachtrim at a cost of £1,340, a repair that was so seamlessly done as to be unnoticeable now, which is high praise indeed.

It also shows a willingness to honour a car’s history, to preserve and conserve rather than replace and restore.

This attitude, which seems to have been a constant throughout the car’s life, helps explain why the Bentley still has its HMV valve radio, and its lightly patinated but still very comfortable seats: The seller saw a lot of Mark VIs before this one, and says that many of them had been retrimmed in modern, thicker leather, something he felt made them less desirable than a car like this, one with character or, as he puts it, soul.

It is also a very well-engineered motorcar: The steering wheel hosts a hand throttle, the control to adjust the fuel mixture, and a lever to adjust the damping; the glovebox lid hosts both a white-on-black Smiths clock and a Yale lock; and the gear lever is nothing short of a piece of art.

The sunroof is framed with wood and as neatly trimmed as everything else, and the headlining around it is clean, taut, and undamaged

Our seller replaced the carpets. Now exquisitely trimmed with tan leather, they show no obvious signs of wear, including to the vulnerable heel protector under the driver’s feet.

Other notable features in the front of the cabin include beautifully-trimmed vents on the side scuttles that allow a good flow of air, making the cabin a much more pleasant place to be when the mercury is rising.

The rear-seat passengers enjoy picnic tables that feature chrome hinges and bookmarked veneer, both of which are still in a good condition with no chips, cracks, or stains. The occupants also get a wood-framed mirror apiece plus padded trim to rest their heads against, an armrest on either side, and carpeted footrests.

It really is a delightful place to be, imbuing a self of wellbeing and isolating you from the woes of the world – and we could all do with a bit of that these days, eh?

The boot contains a spare wheel and tyre plus the tools needed to fit it.

As for issues, the steering wheel has some cracks where the spokes join the hub, the leather on the rear seat’s backrest is cracked and has a loose seam, the window handles have etched a shallow indentation in the leather-trimmed door cards, and the boot carpet is threadbare in places.

The Bentley’s most recent service was on the 21st of March 2024, when D. Moore & Co. carried out routine maintenance that included changing the gearbox and axle oil, flushing and refilling the cooling system, fitting new sparkplugs, cleaning and setting the front and rear brakes, overhauling the steering including fitting new inner and outer track rod ends, and installing four new rear body mounts.

Faults found that weren’t rectified comprise a leaking offside front damper and a fracture in the nearside rear brake expander. The final bill came to £3,595.

Previous work by the same firm in April 2024 comprised reinstating the original points-based ignition system after the ‘upgraded’ electronic system failed.

Not all change is progress, clearly.

This led to another four-figure bill but at least you’ll now be able to sort out future problems without having to fire the parts cannon at it in the hope that one or other of the sealed black boxes you’ve spent a fortune on will fix it.

The service before this was carried out in December 2022 at a cost of almost £3,000. Before that was in April 2021 and £1,714, before that it was June 2020 and £3,157, before that it was March 2019 and £3,000, and before that it was April 2018 and £4,000.

Herne Motors of Canterbury, an independent Rolls-Royce and Bentley specialist, looked after it for the decade before that and, well, you get the picture.

The invoices are all on file for you to admire but the TL:DR is that money has clearly not been a consideration.

The engine starts on the button and shows a healthy charge to the battery straight away. The engine oil pressure builds within moments too, and it revs well with an exhaust note that reminds you that a Bentley is always first and foremost a driver’s car.

But then the seller tells us that Nigel Sandell fitted new gaskets on the intake manifolds and spent many (unbilled) hours stripping and tweaking the carburettors to ensure it was running perfectly before it was driven to us.

In July 2026, as part of the works by Nigel Sandell he also changed spark plugs and Coolant and fitted new MagnaCore HT leads.

And, in September 2024 a new SU fuel pump was fitted.

In fact, it drove so well that both the seller and his wife were visibly upset as they left Brewster with us.

As you’d expect the engine bay is clean and very well presented. We also spotted a work light, a comprehensive tool kit, oil and grease guns, beautifully labelled components, and a spare coil mounted on the bulkhead, just in case. There’s also plenty of space around the engine and its ancillaries, so working on it would be a joy.

The underside appears to be very strong and has been well protected with paint and underseal, though some road dirt from a recent country trip is still evident on the underside - a steam clean and wax oil treatment would resolve this nicely.

The rear leaf springs also have leather gaiters to keep the road dirt out of them.

Brewster comes with an interesting history, having started life with Robinsons, the marmalade people, who bought it for the firm’s chairman. It was finished in black at the time and nothing more is known of it until 1989 when it resurfaced. Now Gunmetal Grey, the wonderfully named R.F. Fuggle Ltd apparently sold it to a W. Woods of Southampton, who decided to have Rees Bros of Aldershot tidy it up.

As these things tend to, the work escalated until the bill stood at around the £20,000 mark, at which point he relinquished ownership to the company. Rees Bros eventually sold it to a Mr. George Hampson, a classic car collector, in 1995.

A note in the history file says that George Hampson later sold the car to an unnamed narrator, who commissioned D.P. Lead of Deal to finish its restoration before using it to holiday in France and Germany, winning the Best in MKVI category while it was at it.

The Bentley does not have an MoT certificate, and the recent Vehicle History Check is clear bar the markers for the changes in colour we’ve already mentioned.

It comes with three spare keys neatly Sellotaped to a card that’s hole-punched so it can be kept safely in the car’s history file. We love details like this because if they’re this meticulous about the small stuff, you can bet they’ve been equally fastidious about the big and important things. (There is also a typed note about the keys, which again reinforces the importance of keeping them safe!).

This conscientiousness is further supported by the history file, which includes invoices from as recently as November 2025 for a headlamp seal all the way back to its restoration by Rees Bros. in 1990. They’re from retailers as diverse as Flying Spares, Holden, Longstone, and Jack Barclay too, which is equally pleasing.

Other contents include some neatly collated tax discs, a list of MoT dates and mileages, old test certificates, a copy of the Construction and Test Records, a workshop manual, and even correspondence between owners; clearly the seller and his wife aren’t the first people to have fallen for Brewster’s considerable charms.

Our guide price of between £25,000 and £30,000 in no way reflects the quality of the motorcar that paltry sum would buy; prices of cars from the 1950s have dropped, which is bad news for their owners but does open the market to a generation who thought they’d long since moved out of reach.

And, for many, these cars represent the point at which high-quality engineering still meets everyday usability; owning them can be an absolute joy as they’ll waft you across continents in more style than just about anything else.

Of course, most folk use them for shorter trips like days out at the seaside, jaunts to a country pub for an evening meal, or even to see a show in the West End.

But no matter what use you put ‘em too, you can sure a car like this says only good things about you.

Viewing is strongly encouraged, and this lot is located at THE MARKET HQ in South Oxfordshire. Viewings are STRICTLY BY APPOINTMENT and we are open weekdays (apart from Bank Holidays) between 10am - 12pm or 2pm - 4pm. To make a booking, please use the ‘Enquire About This Vehicle’ button on the listing. Feel free to ask any questions, or try our ‘Frequently Asked Questions’.