Í have an image from childhood,' says Ian Owen, 'it's a memory of seeing a fastback Bentley for the first time. I don't know whether it was an R-type or an S-series, but I know I walked around it, trying to work out what it was. I thought it was such an elegant shape.'
Like many of us, Ian's early exposure to a particular car sowed a seed. It would be lovely to own such a thing one day, wouldn't it? Ian was fortunate - he had a business he was able to sell in 2008 and that mental seed finally had a chance to grow. Perhaps, after all, he could try and find a Bentley fastback - or at least look seriously at the idea.
As a first step, Ian went to Frank Dale & Stepsons for a walk around - just looking, you understand. There he found both generations of this H.J. Mulliner fastback body, the original R-type and the slightly altered, slightly later S-series.
'There was one S-series in there in grey, a colour I thought suited it very well,' says Ian. 'In fact, I thought the S-series was the more elegant of the two shapes. I went out for a test drive in it, and it drove really well, and it was half the price of an R-type. So I became the
