Great Cars: BENTLEY

Bentley's have always been arresting always being stylish and always fast they are eye-catching but never over-the-top their cars for people with taste who want some fun but don't want to flaunt their wealth whether built for speed or glamour Bentley's are cars that demand to be driven [Music] Bentley was created by a talented man who eventually lost the company to a rival but his cars became a British institution [Music] after years of being a somewhat dated luxury car it returned to its performance roots this is appropriate because racing and speed excited the founder Walter Cohen Bentley was born in 1888 his father and grandfather were Yorkshire people and very proud of it his father was a man of considerable means who owned a nice home in London young Walter grew up surrounded by a large family this was a happy time for the boy he spent an idyllic childhood here until he was sent off to school as a boy he was fascinated by steam engines at the age of 16 he took a job with the Great Northern Railway Works in Doncaster in northern England he spent five years learning everything he could about locomotive engineering but the age of personal transportation had begun and Bentley didn't want to miss this opportunity when he was at locomotive works the motorcycle was just being developed at that time as a means of transport and he developed an interest in speed on motorcycles at quite an early age indeed he took up motorcycle racing as a in a very amateur way and he'd already developed enough engineering knowledge at that time to be able to maintain these machines and indeed modify them to go quicker [Music] eventually Bentley moved on from motorcycles and bought a secondhand car and started racing since he loved to tinker with these machines it seemed clear that he should be in the automobile business he at that tower course was in his early twenties and indeed he and his brother HM bought their first company when W EV and he was 24 and HM was 27 and the company was the UK importer for the DFP car which was a French like car built in Paris one of the things they did was to enhance the engine to produce more horsepower this enabled it to compete in motorsports events like hill climbs and road races wo as he was known believed that publicity from motorsports would be good for selling motor cars he regarded racing as a form of advertising his racing days were cut short by war but this didn't sideline him completely World War one transformed warfare it was the first war where mechanized armies clashed tanks on the ground submarines under the sea and airplanes in the sky Bentley's engineering skills caught the government's eye and he was recruited for the war effort he became an engineer for the Royal Navy during World War one assigned to develop aero engines he built two Bentley rotary engines BR one BR two in succession they were marvelous marvelous engines but and the pilots depended on those engines to get him back home his revolutionary air of engines became famous when they were installed in the Sopwith Camel after the war Bentley revived his racing and auto production interests he had received quite a good royalty cheque from the Air Ministry for his work during the first world war producing aero engines and with that he set up to achieve his dream of producing fast sporting motorcars Bentley went into production after the war with this wonderful sports touring car a fast reliable touring car which had great performance great promise and of course it became the star of British racing successes during the 1920s his new cars were very competitive and had early successes in hill climbs and the club events this stimulated sales to keep those orders coming in he needed to ramp up his racing efforts and then in 1922 he decided they would have a team in the Tourist Trophy race and he took a team of three cars there they all finished they won the team prize they didn't win the race but it was a big success for them and gave them a lot of publicity many among his friends his customers and his team of races were excited about a new event in France he'd heard about these crazy friends who were going to organise a 24-hour race at the place called l'amour and he didn't believe that any car could stand up to racing for 24 hours certainly not his Bentley was a modest man and he didn't think it was possible for a car to hold up under these conditions while his customers John Duff was intent on taking on the challenge himself and approached WL for help Bentley lent him his team driver a couple of mechanics and wished him luck the last minute see he got a guilty conscience and he decided to get the night fairy him go across to the race and of course they finished fourth in this but it's fair to say wo was then sold on the idea of l'amour starting in 1924 Bentley fielded a team at l'amour every year his cars became identified with the race so from then on it was work supported teams that took place and they then had successive victories his round the latter part of the 1920s into 1930 the Bentley drivers were called the Bentley boys they became folk heroes they were rich and dashing Society figures who wanted to have fun typically on their way to LeMond they stopped off at a French castle these guys would drive from London leave their expensive homes in London drive down to Leeds Castle during the days when the Honorable Dorothea Padgett was the team sponsor she lived in Leeds Castle in Kent they drive to Leeds Castle have a big party gather boat across the channel drive down to the mall have a race win come back and have another party so this was just part of their life these flamboyant figures parted and played hard but then when it came to the racing oh boy you know you put on the the helmet and you do your discipline and you race to win and you win it helped that lead driver Wolfman Otto was the heir to a South African diamond and gold mining fortune he had a passion for racing and he invested in Bentley's company the success and notoriety of bonauto and the other Bentley boys made driving a Bentley around town fashionable the real business of the company was bread and butter motorcars luxury cars okay but that was really what they were about not everyone wanted just a bread-and-butter car bonauto and others took the same engine and chassis built for the race cars and had custom bodies built for them the result the speed six was a sporty six liter car that was elegant powerful and fast Bonato owned a speed six similar to this Corsica coupe a that became known as the Blue Train Bentley he was so confident about his car that he bet 100 pounds that he could drive from kin to London before Frances high-speed train blew could make it to Calais he accomplished this extraordinary feat despite bad roads heavy rain fog a blown tire and a shortage of gas stations the [Music] speed six offered everything a demanding driver could want they wanted performance and they wanted reliability and they wanted comfort and of course the majority of the buyers wanted a saloon car the the image you have today of people tearing about in open bank losses is a post-war post-world War two thing really when they were contemporary people wanted protection they weren't interested in getting wet just because it was abandoned Lee the racing version of the speed six was an attempt by Bentley to stave off the competition they were using superchargers to power their cars Venter decided to build bigger engines instead but after winning LeMond in 1929 one of his race car drivers Sir Tim Birkin was convinced that lightweight supercharged cars were the future Birkenfeld supercharging the four-cylinder engine will keep Bentley races at the head of the pack the Calif all ex-fighter pilot was determined to have his way he commissioned a supercharger and the blower Bentley was born in spite of wo resistance he set up a separate company to build the Birkins blowers in 1930 he convinced his driving partner Bernardo who was money kept venturi in business to back the building of 50 supercharged four and a half litre cars by the factory so that they could qualify for entry in the 24 Hours of lamont the Bentley team in 1930 was made up of a mixture of supercharged cars and speed sixes each had a role to play Bentley's main foe was the fast and fearsome white Mercedes SS k at Germany's Rudolf Caracciola WL decided to pit Birkin the former British aerial combatant and the superfast new blower car against car Triola he instructed Birkin to run flat out from the drop of the flag his mission was to entice the Mercedes into racing with him until it either broke down or crashed [Music] the two cars battled it out for hours eventually they both broke down but Bentley's plan did pay off the very same car that won in 1929 a speed six did it again bonauto gave Bentley his fifth and final win at LeMond after that victory at LeMond wo decided to pull out of racing the Bentley era was drawing to a close the glamorous blower Bentley has become one of the most charismatic and sought-after cars ever built but the decision to build 50 of them in order to qualify the car philemon probably hastened Bentley's financial decline [Music] while building the blower cars may have been foolhardy in truth there were many other factors that weighed Bentley down first of all he was always short of working capital he never had the luxury of a lot of wealth behind him to see him through difficult times and in the latter part of the twenties and particularly in 1929 onwards as you'd say the the world depression was starting to bite you know all about what was happening on Wall Street I'm sure well that the effects of that of course spread into Europe and particularly into into the UK and the demand for these expensive cars just began to tail off the Bentley company went into receivership because its chief financial backer captain Woolf Barnato of South African diamond mining fame was advised by his financial people not to put any more money into Bentley but to start consolidating his holdings because the depression was so bad in New York and it wasn't really good in London or South Africa or anywhere else so really the company went bust and the liquidator had to sell the assets rumors of Bentley's fate began to spread so it became known in inner circles that that the Bentley company was going to go pop it was expected that Bentley would be bought by Napier and that Walter owned Bentley himself would go to Napier there was a strong desire on the part of Napier I think it's true to say to take Bentley on board take wo on board with a view to producing a new luxury car and everybody including wo thought that was going to happen Napier expected it would buy the assets upcoming hearing at the hearing solicitor stood up and said I represent the British central equitable trust I been so much more the court receiver said well we're not going to get into an auction but of course they actually did he gave him a few hours to submit their final bids and the British central equitable trust got the company and it was only afterwards that wr's wife discovered that this company I think it was called British equitable trust or humming Linus was actually a a front for rolls-royce and they had bought Bentley Walter Bentley was in shock Rose Royce knew that if Napier and Bentley got together this would be serious competition and so I think it's true to say that their main interest in acquiring Bentley was to stop Napier getting their hand on it along with the company rolls also got the services of its chief officer wo Bentley and for the first time he would have to start taking orders he certainly wasn't in control of his company because Rolls Royce simply closed down the the Works Cricklewood in North London and they absorbed the name Bentley into their own range of cars there were two models the first was the 3.5 liter Bentley and the second developed in the mid thirties was the four and a quarter liter they were both the same concept but the former quarter came along because people wanted to put heavier bodies on them just as they had done with Bentley's in the twenties the heavier bodies needed more power to pull the cars around they became famous in their own right as fast and comfortable saloon cars very much in the tradition of the Bentley also in the tradition of rolls-royce because it had tremendous performance would outdo a Bugatti would out do most anything in its class but it was very quiet and they build it and they marketed it very successfully as the silent sports car [Music] like most classic cars of that era you couldn't buy a Bentley with a body from the factory the company made the engine and chassis the bodies were built by a number of specialized coach makers such as Moana Park Ward gurney Nutting and vanden plas this created a large number of different looking cars after World War two they began to build both rolls-royce and Bentley at the company's former aircraft engine Factory at Crewe in Cheshire this is where Bentley's are still built today the first crew Bentley was the mark 6 it was also the first Bentley to be delivered with a body built by the factory by the 1950s this r-type Continental was the most desirable Bentley the fastback Continental was powerful and sturdy enough to allow it to cruise at 100 miles per hour it's elegant look guaranteed that the Continental would become a classic but by the 1960s a Bentley had just become a rolls-royce with a different grille and badge in the 80s there were attempts to cash in on Bentley's racing heritage the turbocharged Moll son named after a famous straight on the LeMond circuit started to revive the Bentley legend I [Music] think what happened was that although the Bentley became really a badge-engineered rolls-royce in the 60s and 70s subsequently rolls-royce realized that the Bentley legend if you like was worth cultivating as a marketing exercising tool but by the 1990s parent roles was in financial trouble like Bentley in the 1930s it was no longer competitive and the company was put up for sale the question to grab one of the most exalted brands in the world eventually set off a war among rival shooters BMW is bid was topped by a late offer by Volkswagen of about eight hundred million dollars as the world congratulated the victor VW discovered that it hadn't quite landed the prize the rolls-royce name and double our logo belonged to rose Weiss aerospace it had split away from the car manufacturer in 1971 they favored BMW this left Bentley as a consolation prize for VW the first BMW designed at rolls-royce appeared in 2003 this v12 powered ultra luxury car was called the phantom many critics weren't taken with its styling the target was to build a thousand phantoms a year at a third of a million dollars a copy but the styling made it a hard sell car enthusiasts wondered if VW would make the same styling mistakes with the new Bentley it was stunning it was everything wo would want a car to be it received rave reviews all around the world of course the Continental GT had to be not just a new Bentley it had to be the Bentley that's going to influence a generation to come and project the brand's values into the future the car itself the Continental GT combines both supercar performance and the accommodation that is only usually achieved in a saloon car so we can expect with this package with naught to 60 in less than five seconds with a top speed of in excess of 180 miles an hour we believe we can attract both sports car buyers and the luxury coupe A's and saloon car bison in the market with a new Continental GT Bentley is going back to the world eras of the twenties with the famous five limo big trees we go back to our sporty brand values powerful cars well connected to our racing heritage and at the same time still being very luxurious and that is where we are heading for with this car and is more cars to come Bentley even went back to l'amour and won a first and second in 2003 just before the company launched the new Continental GT while new cars were capturing headlines people still had an affection for the classics built well W O's in charge he built something just over three thousand Bentley's in his time and something over a thousand of them are still up and running around the world and if you drive one you are very conscious even if you're the most mechanical person you're very conscious you're driving something a bit different and rather special so I think the actual driving of the cars and realising what you've you've inherited this is quite a big element in this some say a roll hoist is for admiring while the Bentley is meant to be driven no matter what these are cars that will continue to delight us for years [Music]

Channel: King Rose Archives

Views: 141,586

Keywords: The Bentley Boys, Bentley Blower, Blower Bentley, Luxury cars, Walter Owen Bentley, Woolf Barnato, Blue Train Races, Sir Henry Tim Birkin, H.J. Mulliner, Volkswagen

Id: WtFm7x43XW8

Length: 25min 4sec (1504 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 01 2017