One piece of advice I remember receiving when I was seriously considering a Mk VI or R-type Bentley was this: ‘stay away from the coachbuilt versions and stick to the Standard Steel saloons.' The reason for this rather spoilsport approach was simple enough; at the lower to middle end of the market, you can expect to find body repairs that need doing, and doing them right to coachbuilt Bentleys of the 1950s can be a scary prospect. But not scary enough, as it turns out, to deter Ernie Warrender.
Ernie has a few very interesting cars, and we featured his much-loved vintage Bentley 3-litre a few issues back. But the bulk of his interest lies with post-war machinery, and he purchased this 1958 James Youngbodied Bentley S1 just over a decade ago. It seemed to be a three-owner car in highly original condition with only 31,000 miles on the clock, so despite its rather funereal black paint, Ernie took the plunge and bought it.
‘It was ordered by Victor Ercolani of Ercol furniture, who made lots of money producing TV cabinets in the early days of television,' says Ernie. ‘At some point in the 1960s, I think, it
