The Mark VI 4-door standard steel sports saloon[4] was the first post-war luxury car from Bentley.

These very expensive cars were a genuine success; long-term, their weakness lay in the inferior steels forced on them by government's post-war controls.

[12] A very few Mark VI engines and chassis were modified to provide higher performance and sold to be bodied by selected coachbuilders as the first Bentley Continentals (see below).

The manufacturer refused to disclose a horse power value for the car (other than Tax Horsepower of 29.4 hp according to the old RAC formula) but an Autocar Magazine road test reproduced in 1950 reported that top gear provided "flexibility down to 6 mph (10 km/h)" and the ability to "climb a hill of 1 in 9 maximum gradient, complicated by bends",[14] all of which supported the manufacturer's contention that power, along with low speed torque, were adequate.

[16] A four-speed synchromesh manual transmission was fitted in all Bentley MK VI with the change lever to the right of the driver on RHD cars and on the column on LHD versions.

[17] 4+1⁄4-litre cars had chassis numbers from B 1 AJ through B 400 LJ, with the final two letters indicating the series in which it was built.

[19] In addition for "standard steel" Mark VI saloons the single hinged ventilation flap centrally mounted on the top of the bonnet, directly ahead of the windscreen was replaced, on later cars, with two hinged ventilation flaps, mounted at or slightly below knee height, one on each side of the bonnet, ahead of the front doors.

The 12.25 in (311 mm) drum brakes were assisted by the traditional Rolls-Royce mechanical servo at the transmission.

[20] Employing its experience with the steel bodies made in short runs since 1936 by then partly-owned subsidiary Park Ward the Car Division of Rolls-Royce offered their lowest priced chassis with a factory-supplied body all-steel so it could be exported all over the world.

The factory bodies with a Gurney-Nutting-Blatchley refined shape were made by Pressed Steel Ltd of Cowley and sent to the Bentley works at Crewe for painting and fitting out with traditional wood and leather.

They featured rear hinged "suicide" doors at the front with concealed hinges, a sliding sunroof, a permanently closed windscreen with an electric defrosting and demisting unit hidden in the scuttle and a second heater that made use of the coolant and was fitted with an electric fan beneath the left front seat.

By special arrangement with Bentley 2-door bodies were fitted having a lower frontal area and of significantly lighter construction, the first – made by H J Mulliner – developed in conjunction with Evernden and Blatchley.