1930s BENTLEY 8 LITRE - 107.3mph

Establishing the top speeds of pre-war cars is a fraught business that not only requires a solid and incontestable baseline for each nominee, but also an awareness that very few cars from high-end marques would look or perform in the same way after they left their respective factories.

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The Bentley 8 Litre and its contemporaries were generally sold as chassis, to which one of many coach-built bodies could be fitted, invariably having a significant bearing on the car's maximum speed. We've chosen this model because, according to leading marque authority Dr Clare Hay in Bentley – The Vintage Years, any 8 Litre could achieve a genuine 104mph, even when specified with the bluffest, heaviest saloon body. Moreover, WO Bentley achieved not only the first 100mph lap of Brooklands by a closed car in a two-door 8 Litre, but also 107.3mph at Montlhéry with Herbert Kensington-Moir.

While it's true that the odd rival with light and rakish metalwork was tested at fractionally higher speeds during this decade, it's also true that 8 Litre rolling chassis – its 200bhp output trouncing most - would have left the works of coachbuilders such as Mulliner and Vanden Plas with performance-enhancing bodywork, too.

Bentley's claim for it being the world's fastest production chassis at the 8 Litre's Earls Court debut in 1930 is the final rationale, which quashes all variables. And it's the baseline' saloon that we have with us today, the second of 100 8 Litres built, The Autocar test car and originally the property of WO himself, now faithfully restored and Bentley-owned. You have to wonder if, when he pushed the starter button for the first time, WO realised how close to the financial precipice his firm actually was.