Curbside Classic: 1963 Bentley S3 Continental Flying Spur – Three Houses’ Worth

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– Posted on March 28, 2025

Have car prices really plummeted in the past half century, or is it house prices that have just gone mad? I’m guessing the answer might be somewhere in the middle, but here’s a car that cost about the same as three average homes in its day. It’s beautiful, sure. Powerful, too. Extremely well-built, without question. Comfortable, no doubt. But still – three houses’ worth?

Of course, that depends on what house you’re talking and where it’s located. A house in 2025 has a few more gadgets and features than your average 1963 homestead did, in Britain or anywhere. So does the average car, come to that.

The Continental Flying Spur is not your average car, obviously. Though they shared 99% of their chassis components, these were a cut above the standard Bentley S3 / Rolls Silver Cloud III.

Mechanically, the SU carbs in the Continental were of a different type, giving the 6.2 litre V8 a few more hp – though famously the actual number was never divulged. And the steering column was angled differently, due to the bodies fitted to Continental chassis having a lower roofline.

The added value was style, pure and simple. The standard steel saloon was a ‘50s design that looked dated even when it was launched. Dignified, but not everyone’s cup of Earl Gray. For those who wanted something a bit more modern, in-house coachbuilders at Crewe, known since 1961 as H.J. Mulliner-Park Ward, could provide a number of bespoke options. There were several variants of coupés and convertibles to choose from, as well as the Flying Spur saloon. A few customers preferred to take their Continental chassis to the few remaining other options, such as James Young and the likes of Chapron, Ghia or Graber on the other side of the Channel.

This pre-war method of doing things was really no longer sustainable by the ‘60s. Prices for bespoke bodies had spiralled out of control; factory bodies, which were finished by the very same people who did the higher-end stuff, were deemed quite sufficient for most people. All the Rolls-Bentley needed was a new model, which would do away with the separate chassis, and the book on coachbuilt cars would be closed. And so the R-R Silver Shadow / Bentley T-Series was launched in late 1965, doing precisely that.

The S3 Continental chassis was made in pretty small quantities: only 311 between late 1962 and early 1966, though the very last deliveries took another year. That was another issue with coachbuilt bodies: they could take a long time to manufacture. The Mulliner-Park Ward Flying Spur saloon accounted for 87 cars; James Young also made 18 Continental saloons that look pretty similar to these.

This all had quite a cost, of course. Since we are comparing the cost of houses and cars, let’s look at the real estate in more detail. Hard to fault any of the appointments in here. Except that eyesore of a radio!

Interesting to see the backs of the picnic tables in this one have been dressed in leather. There are speakers in the rear doors, too – not something one sees often in European cars of the period. Guess that’s why one of the most famous S3 Flying Spur owners back in the day was Keith Richards.

And you certainly had to be a rock star (or an oil tycoon, or a crowned head of some sort) to be able to afford a luxury car in the ‘60s. Not that cars are all that affordable nowadays, but at least the cost of having a roof over you head was not quite as daunting 60 years ago. In 1963, the average UK house cost £2840. This Flying Spur’s base price – i.e. without A/C, which this car has – was £7860.15.5, purchase tax included.

At the end of last year, the average price of a House in the UK got to a whopping £269,426 and the Bentley Flying Spur, which is on its third generation of the VW era, currently retails at a minimum of £226,500. It’s no longer coachbuilt and body-on-frame, but it boasts a twin-turbo 4-litre V8 coupled with an electric motor, providing over 770hp. Who needs that? Nobody really, but you do get a lot more car for your Pound Sterling in 2025 than in 1963, no question. There were alternatives to the Bentley, of course. The cream of the crop came in a variety of shapes and sizes in the early ‘60s, so let’s take a gander at those while we’re here.

The Bentley Continental was very expensive, even in this context. It was also sort of between a high-performance coupé and a hyper-luxury limo: this crowd is pretty mixed also to reflect that. The Maserati 5000GT was also of the purely bespoke type, though because those were even more exclusive (and almost experimental), price would have varied quite a lot from one Italian carrozzeria to the next. The Lincoln shows the upper limit of American cars at this end of the market – Cadillacs and Imperials would have cost something similar. I couldn’t find UK price listings that included the BMW 3200 CS, but I imagine it would have been in that select crowd as well. And just for added context, an E-Type Jag cost less than £2000 at the time.

Standard steel body Bentleys cost just over £6100, so one had to have very deep pockets – or a total aversion to factory bodies – to justify forking out an E-Type’s (or a house in Scotland’s) worth of dough to go full Continental. That said, I’m glad somebody did. Outrageously expensive though they were, these were easily the most handsome bodies fashioned for the S3 chassis. And they were not available as a Rolls-Royce – this was the last Bentley-only body style before many decades.

Bentleys, then and now, are luxuries one can live without, by definition. Houses, by definition also, are what we live in. I’m not sure how house prices got to climb to such dizzying heights, but you now need a cherry-picker and platform shoes to reach the bottom rung of the property ladder. If it’s cheaper to live in a Flying Spur than own a home, that can’t be good in the long run.

 

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