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04 April 2012
Issue: 7509 / Categories: Blogs
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Battle of the Bentley

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Having recently written about the litigation over the famous vintage racing car Old Number One...

Having recently written about the litigation over the famous vintage racing car Old Number One (NLJ, 24 February, p 302), it was a pleasant surprise to see another mechanical survivor from the blood and thunder days of the Bentley Boys in the courts last month. Once again, the question of originality arose in the context of a classic Bentley whose purchaser alleged it was not the car they had thought it to be. 


Mercedes buys Bentley

The case was brought by the ironically named Mercedes Brewer against the well-known vintage Bentley dealer Stanley Mann, his company and a finance company. Brewer, with the finance company's help, paid £425,000 for a 1930 Speed Six model sold by Mann. 
 
After a year's happy motoring Brewer suddenly stopped paying the hire instalments. She contacted an auction house, which said that the car was unworthy of the description Speed Six, because that applied to a particular type of engine which had only been
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