'In the twilight of their coachbuilding years, James Young had with these cars reached the pinnacle of excellence.' - Martin Bennett, Rolls-Royce and Bentley.

In the 1950s and 1960s the Bentley Continental was the world's ultimate Grand Tourer, a car in which you could set off from any European capital in the morning and arrive at Monte Carlo fresh enough to play the tables that same evening.

Introduced in the autumn of 1959, the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II and Bentley S2 appeared externally unchanged from their 'Cloud and S-Type predecessors, though the duo's performance was considerably enhanced by the new 6230cc aluminium-alloy V8 engine.

Although wider and shorter than the 'six' it replaced, the new power unit fitted relatively easily within the engine bay, relocation of the steering box from inside to outside of the chassis frame being the most obvious alteration to the previous arrangements.

Externally the new models appeared virtually unchanged, while beneath the skin Rolls-...