Pretty as a picture: Surbico's striking Bentley Super Sports

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‘The world’s fastest lorries’ was the put-down with which Ettore Bugatti dismissed the conquering Le Mans Bentleys but, girthsome though the Cricklewood machines may have been, they were not strangers to delicacy or finesse. Of course, that W O Bentley was a great engineer is beyond dispute, but he is associated perhaps too closely with the lumbering Le Mans 4½ Litres instead of the Super Sports Three Litres, which were possibly the best Bentleys for the road, and certainly some of the prettiest.

With their breathed-on ohc engines and low-slung, short-wheelbase chassis, the Super Sports were genuine 100mph cars, but just 18 were made. Two were bodied by Surbico of Surbiton, an obscure business established by E J Newns, later of the better-known Eagle Coachworks, but one of those is completely lost to history. The other survives, displaying one of the most dashing bodies ever fitted to a Bentley. It was built in 1925 at the request of London dealer Jack Withers on behalf of a client, Henry Leeson, who ran a chain of butcher’s shops around Kent and Sussex. A keen aviator and amateur racer who later died in a racing accident, Leeson forked out more than £1000 for the Surbico Super Sports, but he sold it before the end of the year.

Now with it newly-restored and fresh from an appearance at Pebble Beach, we can see unreservedly just what graceful machines Bentleys could be. Mick Walsh takes Ettore to task in the October issue of The Automobile, on sale now.

Words by Zack Stiling
Photographs by Tony Baker

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