Vibrational energy transfer from the 6(1) level of S-1 (B-1(2u)) benzene has been studied at low collision energies in supersonic free jet expansions with 11 polyatomic collision partners. Each of the collision partners has available low lying vibrational levels so that relaxation can proceed via transfer of vibration in benzene to vibration in the collision partner (V --> V transfer). Transfer to the 00 level of benzene is significant with each of these partners. From (a) comparisons with the behavior of the monatomic, diatomic, and small polyatomic partners studied previously and (b) previous results at room temperature [C. S. Parmenter, C. S.; Tang, K. Y. Chem. Phys. 1978, 27, 127], it is deduced that V --> V transfer is responsible for the dominance of the 6(1) --> 0(0) pathway. It is observed that the branching ratios for transfer to 0(0) are consistently largest for straight chain partners. The rotational contours of collisionally populated levels are fairly broad, revealing that significant rotational excitation accompanies vibrational relaxation. Boltzmann distribution fits to the rotational contours for 0(0) give temperatures that are on average slightly lower than those found for small polyatomics. The observation that a reasonable amount of energy is transferred into benzene rotation suggests that it is the low-frequency modes of the collision partner that are excited. Resonant or near resonant transfer appears to be inefficient. V --> V and V --> R transfer both appear to be operating in relaxation of 6(1) benzene yet are absent in relaxation from the related case of 6(1) p-difluorobenzene [Mudjijono; Lawrance, W. D. J. Chem. Phys. 1996, 105, 9874]. It is suggested that this difference arises because of a reduced efficiency for V --> T transfer in the benzene case due to the 112 cm(-1) higher frequency Of nu(6) in this molecule.