motorman wrote:GHOSTHUNTER wrote:This happened to the 'Blower' Bentley as well. Only Five official LeMans team car 'Blower' Bentley cars were made with another Fifty production cars for private costomers, all wearing DHC or Saloon bodies. Today, there are probably more than a Hundred, all dressed as LeMans cars!
Ghosthunter.
How do you identify a factory original Le Man team Bentley from the interlopers?
Good question Alex!
Those Five team cars were all registered for road use at some time during the team's ownership and they still have their original index numbers. Any copy or look-A-like car can not have any of those index numbers and if such a car did turn up for sale through an auction house, the experts would soon jump on the car to check it's status and check the current owners of the team cars to see if one has been put forward for resale.
There have been some pretty good team car look-A-likes and one such car shown below sold for £557.075 in Bonham's sale in 2009.
- Team Car look-A-like..JPG (33.54 KiB) Viewed 1054 times
When an original team car has been sold, it can fetch a fair bit of Money as this Tim Birkin single seater did in 2012, going for £4,5 Million.
- Genuine team car..JPG (57.83 KiB) Viewed 1054 times
This body style is a later adaptation of the car replacing a similar style to the LeMans specification, not a rebody as it was instigated by Tim Birkin and his engineers for speed attempts.
Ghosthunter.
