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vor 49 Minuten schrieb hektor:

Dear John,

Further to your post, my recollection is that it is a Mk VI Bentley with Facel Metallon coupé coachwork.

Assume this is correct. My initial though (a minute ago without further checking) was "Facel body" but I have never seen that Bentley in the real world. Interesting car. Might be worth to google it´s history.

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Bentley Mark VI Facel - Metalon is correct - it is a '51 Bentley MkVI with a Facel body, but there is more to this particular one-off example of the series is the last of a run of 10 Cresta coupes ( or sixteen / seventeen, if one is to belive M.Jean Daninos, the CEO of  Forge et Ateliers de Construction d'Eure et de Loire - FACEL for short - ,although during his lifetime he never produced proof to convince the world that his firm actually produced 17)  of the Crestas, and comes with its own fascinating history.  There is an interesting story of him persuading Pinin Farina Carrozzeria to design a body for the then new Bentley Mk VI with the new 4-1/4 liter motor, so FACEL could present the car in Bentley's behalf at the '47 Paris auto show, which Pininfarina duly delivered to Facel, who went on to produce ten Cresta coupes over time, the design of which in turn was based on the Alfa post-war 6C 2500 Coupe his firm had designed, and which incidentally also served as a forerunner to the sensational Bentley designed, Mulliner-built Continental R series of the '50s. The only thing he was requested to alter was the grill, which Bentley felt was too wide, and insisted that it be made narrower to preserve the 'stately' appearance of the traditional Bentley grille.

At the end of the run of the Bentley Cresta Coupes, Daninos wanted to bring the body more up-to-date and attempted to build the Cresta II series, but the car shown here is the only example of this attempt, since shortly after his firm finished it & he presented it to his wife as a daily driver gift and who dubbed the car the "Baby Cresta", and went on to produce cars under his own name in collaboration with Vega. 

I'm not sure who should get to post the next puzzle car, whether it's hector or Ronald, I'll leave that to the  moderators - or perhaps whoever wants to jump in & feels like posting the next one.

Thanks for playing,

M9 / 35mm Summicron Ver. IV

JZG

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A side view, and I think it's easy to agree that the car is strikingly beautiful.There is a great deal of history, detail & information available on the inter web if you google it.

JZG

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Having changed many Bentley and Rolls-Royce wheels, I recognised the wheel-cover immediately.  It was and still is an unusual process of removing and replacing the wheel-cover with a large aluminium ring spanner.  The wheel nuts had clockwise and anti-clockwise thread depending on which side of the car.

Stuart I will now look for something impossible.

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20 minutes ago, hektor said:

Having changed many Bentley and Rolls-Royce wheels, I recognised the wheel-cover immediately.  It was and still is an unusual process of removing and replacing the wheel-cover with a large aluminium ring spanner.  The wheel nuts had clockwise and anti-clockwise thread depending on which side of the car.

Stuart I will now look for something impossible.

Hello Hektor,

Clockwise & counter clockwise lug nuts. That is something.

Best Regards,

Michael

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One of my housemasters at school, bought a very well used early 1930's Rolls Royce Phantom II (original owner Sir Harry Lauder, the Scottish music hall star) when his even older 1928 Austin Heavy 16 died from neglect. He came into a Biology class, which he taught, one day and asked if there was any chance that anyone knew how to remove an RR road wheel. Luckily for him I did. He had never thought of using the correct tool, with the central release locking spline depressor (see photo below) and had been using a pipe wrench to try and undo the wheel nut. He had unfortunately pretty much destroyed the nut in doing so. He was a very large and heavily built man, a retired colonel from the British paratroops, so a lot of force had been applied to the pipe wrench. 

Wilson

 

 

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My first car, a 1958 MGA coupe that I bought in 1964 had wire wheels.  The knock-off's were clockwise/anticlockwise depending on the side of the car, a common practice to help ensure  the wheels would stay put when in use.  I later gave up on maintaining the wire wheels and had the hubs welded to solid steel rims, which worked well, well past the time I sold the car.

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On 10/9/2021 at 9:08 PM, stuny said:

Jim hasn't been responding, not even to PM, so who ever would like to post the next puzzle car, please do so.

My apologies.  I have been rather busy over the last week and haven't had time to check even my emails until earlier today.  I see, however, that we have moved on......

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