100 years to be proud of
Many years ago, when we were friendly rivals instead of friendly colleagues, Robert Coucher and myself stood all alone outside the Hurlingham Club during an upmarket car event observing and discussing a rather special automobile. It should be clarified at this point that, while the beautiful people were swishing between the multi-million-pound smorgasbord of icons on the riverside lawns of the exclusive club, Coucher and I were in the deserted car park on the other side of the building.
In front of us, parked as if it had been abandoned by a joyrider who had realised the Thames Valley Police chopper was above him, was a ratty but charming MkVI Bentley. It was pretty much the worst of breed (so definitely not the above beauty spotted at Wilton House), a silver Standard Steel Saloon with what we thought were curious brown coachlines, but which turned out to be rust. Such was its understated grace, such was its presence, and such was the allure of the ‘For sale, £9950’ sign in the window that we were entranced. Neither of us bought it, of course, but what a sublime city smoker it would have been.
For me, that incident just summed up the fact that all Bentleys are special, that it is one of those few marques with a genuine aura elevating it above all but the very few. Bentley has such a sense of self as a marque (or ‘brand’ as I expect we are supposed to say nowadays) that even the badge-engineered models that dominate its timeline cannot subsume its personality. That explains why T1s cost so much more than Silver Shadows. And the very existence of that difference is all it takes to summarise what is special about Bentley.
As a business, Bentley has stumbled rather unconvincingly through the last century (though financially it is probably in safer hands than ever before), yet never has it lost its mystique. As a result, and aware that enthusiasts will have been force-fed a stodgy diet of Bentley this year, our anniversary special consciously celebrates four familar aspects of the marque – vintage era, Le Mans, the Rolls-Royce years and today – but with what is hopefully a rather less hackneyed approach. It is Bentley, after all; it deserves more than a quick reskin.