STARS AND THEIR CARS - THE PETER SELLERS BENTLEY S2 CONTINENTAL DROPHEAD COUPE

Any 1960 Bentley S2 Continental Drophead Coupe with Park Ward coachwork is a car to beguile and mesmerise - https://www.handh.co.uk/auction/lot/lot-128---1960-bentley-s2-continental-drophead-coupe/?lot=58941&so=4&st=Peter%20Sellers&sto=0&au=&ef=&et=&ic=False&sd=1&pp=48&pn=1&g=1. So, when H&H offered such an exquisite machine that was the property of one of our finest actors, the temptation to place family members on eBay to raise the necessary funds was quite acute.

The youthful ambition of Peter Sellers was to buy “Cars, cars, cars!” and by the 15 June 1963, he told the press he had bought and sold 71 in the past five years. Other times, the figure was 74 or even 83, with the actor spending £136,000 (£3,569,083.94 in 2024 terms). Sellers, according to his secretary, was on a quest for perfection in acting (which he achieved on some notable occasions), cameras and cars.

And with the last-named, each new acquisition seemed to be temporarily the ultimate. By 1959, Sellers acquired a Bentley S1 Continental with H. J. Mulliner coachwork and three years later, his Aston Martin DB4 GT featured in The Wrong Arm of the Law A Bristol 407 was “perfect. I didn’t know such a car existed” and a Lincoln Continental Convertible was a car “of great integrity and comfort…I never had a car with such superb attention to detail and finish”. On the 28 June 1965, a Ferrari 500 Superfast costing £11,518 became Car No. 76, but by 1967, Sellers parted with it, after covering just 10,000 miles.

Sellers was not the only post-war British film star associated with cars; Diana Dors and Laurence Harvey owned some very fine vehicles. But Sellers was the most high-profile, with the press reporting how he bought the Racing Car Show Lotus Elan GT for Britt Ekland in 1964 or his plans to establish ‘Sellers Racing Ltd.’ in 1965. And in 1962, the actor famously commissioned Hooper to transform his Morris Cooper into the ultimate town car. The resulting 51 modifications cost him £1,800 in addition to the original £679 price tag.

The actor was an avid reader of Motor and Autocar, and Tony Crook of Bristol Cars later reflected that he had to install a special ‘Peter Sellers Service Bay’ at his Hersham dealership. The two met in 1960 when Sellers: “Left me with some American car which he said had something wrong with it and bought a 407 Bristol from me. Thereafter, he bought Bristol after Bristol from me and we struck up a friendship. He then left me with five other cars he said didn’t work and within weeks I was looking after all his cars for him.”

Given Seller’s mercurial temper, the fact that the Bentley S2, chassis BC119AR, remained in his fleet for nearly five years is a testament to its appeal. When a Mr L.E. Lawrie ordered it in 1960, the price was £8,246 2s 6d – or more than the cost of 16 Minis. By November 1961, and 8,000 miles later, Sellers became its custodian, and he commissioned various modifications such as the “smoke glass mirror with longer arm, allowing you the full movement of the sun visor”. The quad headlamps also pre-date the S3 Park Ward Continentals and H&H observes: “Although there is no definitive proof concerning the date and architect of the Bentley’s facelift, a Jack Barclay Ltd invoice dated the 19th of January 1962 intriguingly mentions, ‘In conjunction with coach shop, removing and refitting necessary lamps’”.

Mr S. Edgson of the Wardour Development Co. Ltd. apparently became the third owner on the 12 July 1966. One of the interests of this writer is that Seller’s Bentley ownership spans the years of some of his finest work and that he sold it in the year of one of his worst pictures. To watch Mr. Topaze, The Wrong Arm of the Law, Only Two Can Play, The Dock Brief, Heaven’s Above!, or Dr. Strangelove is to marvel at his talents. To view Casino Royale is to wonder at the sheer waste of time and money.

And to see footage of his Bentley S2 Continental Drophead is to think of Seller’s statement, “I just cannot take mediocrity, I just cannot take it on any level.”

With thanks to: https://www.handh.co.uk/.

Photos courtesy of H&H.