Stanley Mann
Classic car world loses Bentley restorer, racer – and character
One Of the classic car world’s most ebullient characters, Stanley Mann, has died following a fall in his workshop on 4 February. Described by his close friend Philip Strickland of Benjafield’s Racing Club as ‘a big, warm-hearted, generous family man’, Mann was globally renowned for his deep love of vintage Bentleys, selling, restoring and racing them. And above all, enjoying them to the full.
Stanley Mann was born in April 1945 and began his career as a professional photographer. But he became smitten by the Bentley marque after he had the opportunity to restore a 3 Litre model; he soon binned the photographic career and set up a vintage Bentley operation behind his parents’ butcher’s shop in Edgware, North London. As the business grew, he later moved to a farm in Radlett, to the north of the capital, and there he stayed as his reputation flourished.
Mann’s early passion was restoration work and at one time or another most of the world’s notable vintage Bentleys passed through his workshop. Despite his expertise in turning basketcases into gleaming Le Mans replicas, Mann came to believe in the importance of maintaining originality, wherever possible, and successfully raced standard cars in Britain and Europe.
In 1988, driving the then-recently restored ‘Old Mother Gun’ – a 6.5-litre single-seater Bentley that had originally raced at Brooklands – Mann set two Class B UK speed records for 100-mile and 500-mile distances. He returned in 1992 to pick up the 1000-mile record and thus completed the set.
As a firm believer that the best way to really enjoy your car is to use it, Mann established the eponymous Stanley Mann Racing Team. Together with Philip Strickland, he went on to found Benjafield’s Racing Club, an organisation intended to ‘preserve the spirit of camaraderie and sportsmanship which inspired Dr JD Benjafield [bacteriologist and Bentley Boy] and the Great Racing Team for whom he drove’.
With membership restricted to just 100 and vintage Bentley ownership implying some form of considerable wealth, Benjafield’s Racing Club stood a fair chance of being written off as just a bunch of elitist toffs having a jolly. And yet, with Mann in control, the club became known for hard driving and even harder playing, and its madcap antics and incredible adventures in very valuable cars cast a more favourable light on its members. In 2015 it was crowned ‘Club of the Year’ at the International Historic Motoring Awards.
Octane will remember Stanley Mann as someone ever-willing to help with magazine features, to give generous praise when it was due and very forthright critcism when it wasn’t, and to always get the drinks in... He is survived by his wife Karen and son Oliver, who will continue his father’s Bentley legacy alongside Mann’s sister, Elaine.