Pick of the Day: 1955 Bentley R-Type saloon with elegant coachbuilt body

The classic British luxury car looks like a piece of royal livery

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The Bentley looks ready to transport the Queen Mum to the summer palace

Looking like a grand dowager of British royalty, the Pick of the Day is a 1955 Bentley R-Type sedan (or saloon if you happen to be British) that has been draped in flowing formal coachwork by Freestone & Webb.

The grand Bentley looks sharp in the photos with the ad, still gleaming from “a very nice older restoration,” according to the Canton, Ohio, dealer advertising the car on ClassicCars.com. The odometer reads just over 56,000 miles.

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The R-Type was the second series of Bentley luxury cars produced after World War II, basically an update of the existing Mark VI models. The illustrious star of the series was the R-Type Continental, a high-performance version fitted with a sleek Mulliner body design and hotly desired by collectors today.

Most R-Types were produced with standard Bentley bodies, and this beautiful treatment by Freestone & Webb is rarely seen today. Notably, the body is all-aluminum (or aluminium if you’re British) with this example having its steering wheel on the home-market right side.

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“Of the 2,323 Bentley R-types built-in 1955, only 295 were custom coachbuilt bodies and this is one of them,” the seller says. “Excellent paint respray in black and tan with an elegant deep-red leather interior.”

This Bentley is much more of a stately conveyance than a performance car, with its sturdy 4.6-liter inline-6 engine producing 130 horsepower, fed through a 4-speed manual transmission. The seller notes that the engine is correctly fitted with a pair of SU side-draft carburetors.

A classic Bentley of this sort would be a welcomed participant at any British car show, and its could be a fun and reliable entry for classic car rallies of all sorts, providing a supremely comfortable and elegant ride, with an accommodating back seat for family and friends to tag along.

That, and such a magnificent-looking craft could earn its keep by providing livery service for bridal parties and other such limo jobs. A chauffeur’s cap would come in handy.

The Bentley is priced at a reasonable $49,995, which the seller notes is “a unique classy and sleek car at a fair price.”

To view this vehicle on ClassicCars.com, see Pick of the Day.

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