Scroll to trace chassis BA2592 — the black H.J. Mulliner–bodied Speed Six saloon Woolf Barnato actually drove against the Calais–Riviera express. The coupé in every photograph was built two months later.
Cannes, 13 March 1930. The Calais–Méditerranée Express — Le Train Bleu — pulls out at 5:45 p.m. Woolf Barnato has wagered £100 he can reach his club on London's Conduit Street before the train reaches Calais.
He does. By four minutes. French authorities fine Bentley for racing on public roads and bar the marque from that year's Paris Salon. It is the greatest advertisement the company never bought.
Speed Six. Six-and-a-half litres. Saloon body by H.J. Mulliner of Chiswick. 4,551 mm from grille to boot. In archival photographs, black.
Chassis HM2855, bodied by Gurney Nutting, rolled out of Cricklewood in May 1930 — two months after the wager. It was Barnato's personal coupé, painted a deep blue that photographers loved and history conflated with the story.
Two cars. One myth. This one is the record.
Barnato's co-driver Dale Bourn slept through the Channel crossing. From Boulogne onward it was just Barnato, a leather-lined cabin, and a road he mostly could not see.
"I don't recall the fine. I recall the breakfast at the Conduit."
— WOOLF BARNATO, ATTRIBUTED