100 Years Ago Today It Made History, Today It Was Sold For Over 3.7 Million USD.

Geneva, 26th May 2023: A century ago, a Bentley 3 Litre would become the first British car and the first Bentley to compete at the grueling Le Mans 24 Hours race in its debut year. Today, as this iconic race – a 24-hour full-throttle test of man and machine – celebrates its centenary, that very first Bentley has been sold to a British enthusiast for more than £3m.

Brokered by Kidston SA, a company founded by Simon Kidston – the nephew of Glen Kidston, who won the 1930 Le Mans 24 Hours at the wheel of a Bentley – this car represents the beginning of the Bentley legend and the establishing of the tradition of ‘The Bentley Boys’. Kidston, Clement, Duff, and others like Sir Tim Birkin, Dr. Dudley Benjafield, or one-time Bentley Chairman Woolf Barnato would become known as The Bentley Boys for their hard-charging racing lifestyle. As company founder W.O Bentley said of this group’s antics: “The public liked to imagine them living in Mayfair flats. Drinking Champagne in nightclubs, playing the horses and the Stock Exchange, and beating furiously around the racing tracks at the weekend. Of several of them, this was not such an inaccurate picture.”