Buy John Cleese’s Bentley & he’ll take you to lunch

John Cleese is selling his Bentley Eight and throwing in some memorabilia and a lunch on him to the winning bidder.

It probably won’t make much of a dent in the reported $1 million a year he has to pay his ex-wife number three, but for John Cleese, every little helps.

So with wife number four now signed up for a duration yet to be known, John is flogging off his Bentley Eight to try and raise a few bob.

The 1987 Bentley Eight has been in John’s ownership for the last 25 years, but it seems the good Mr Cleese, who didn’t learn to drive until long after he drove the Austin 1100 in Fawlty Towers that got a ‘Damn good thrashing’, hasn’t exactly done stellar mileage.

The Bentley Eight has only done 9,000 miles in the last thirteen years (it’s now done 73k) and, although Cleese says he had the car serviced last year, it only has two stamps in the service book in the last twenty years.

The Bentley – which is stored in Kent – is in need of a little TLC, including peeling veneer inside and a bump and scrape from the last time Cleese ventured out in it. Still, with a starting price of £2500 (and current bid of £11k), it’s not the end of the world.

To tempt buyers to bid, Cleese is offering a number of incentives.

He’s hand-written a page or three of prose about his Bentley, including details of famous bottoms that have graced the passenger seat – including A Fish Called Wanda co-stars Kevin Kline and Jamie Lee Curtis (now there’s a bottom) – an unframed, signed lithograph of Basil Fawlty thrashing the aforementioned Austin 1100 in Fawlty Towers and a private lunch with John.

So if you’re tempted by Mr Cleese’s Bentley Eight or any of the bribes John is offering to potential buyers, you can jump over to the eBay page for the Cleese Bentley or take a look on the Original Memorabilia site that’s organising things.

If only John had kept hold of the clever and delectable Ms Booth, he could have afforded a new Bentley.

And then some.