1934 Bentley once owned by HOF singer Orbison
EDITOR’S NOTE >> David Krumboltz’s regular column is on hiatus until further notice due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In its place, we’re running some of Dave’s favorite past columns. This one originally ran in July 2018.
Bentley’s founder was Walter Owen Bentley, born in 1888. He left school at the age of 16 to work as an apprentice railway engineer and later briefly studied engineering at King’s College in London.
He started his first company at age 24, primarily selling a French car, DFP (Doriot, Flandrin & Parant). A little later he started manufacturing aluminum alloy pistons for the DFP engines. In 1919, Bentley and a brother, Horace Millner Bentley, started Bentley Motors Limited in northern England’s Cricklewood. But it was 1921 before the first Bentley was sold.
Bentley initially earned their excellent reputation through racing. A Bentley won the Le Mans endurance race in 1924, 1927, 1928 and 1930, but the company was undercapitalized and in financial trouble. However, the 1924 the victory convinced investor Woolf Barnato to help with the finances of the company and while that saved the company, Walter Bentley became just an employee of Barnato.
Evidently in 1931, Barnato decided enough was enough and refused to financially support the company further. This was after the stock market crash of 1929. Receivership followed, and the company was purchased by Rolls
Royce. For a second time, founder Bentley became an employee, and not a happy one, this time for Rolls-Royce until his contract expired in 1935.
For a while, Bentley and Rolls-Royce vehicles were identical in appearance except for the traditional Bentley grill and the squared- off radiator of Rolls-Royce. There have been a number of mergers, acquisitions and receiverships regarding RollsRoyce and Bentley up till today, with Rolls-Royce owned by Volkswagen and Bentley by BMW.
Most Bentleys are still manufactured in England, and as of recent years China was their largest market. This edition’s Bentley started off as just a chassis with all the running gear plus the distinctive Bentley radiator and grill. The beautiful body is one of 12 built by Kellner, a French company that built auto bodies before World War II but not after.
“During the war, they were part of the underground in France, and the Germans caught and killed them,” explained Gordon Johnson, of Alamo, who owns this issue’s vehicle, a 1934 3½-liter Derby Bentley.
This edition’s vehicle was the Paris show car in 1934 for Bentley and Kellner. This drop-head coupe has three positions for the top: top up, top down or top folded back to open over the front seats. After the Paris car show, the ownership varied from European nobility to Roy Orbison in 1967, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame singer from Tennessee.
While there, the car deteriorated and then passed through a number of owners, with one Ohio owner paying just $17,500 for this Bentley. In 2014, Johnson acquired the Derby Bentley (Derby, the English town where the car body was built, is pronounced “Darby”).
“I was just looking for something I could work on,” Johnson said. “It was drivable and was in reasonable condition but could use some help. It was not a show car at all. We personally restored the interior and the engine compartment.
This included upholstery and a new top by Ken Nemanic of Vintage Automotive Upholstery. I did the restoration of the woodwork, and I reworked the engine to some extent. I repainted everything except the body myself.”
The total restoration took Johnson about three years. The retired stock broker even made bows to support the convertible top. The Bentley was completely repainted professionally, brought down to bare metal and the colors changed. The original color was red, with fire-engine-red seats. When Johnson bought the car, it was painted dark green. Calling Johnson a perfectionist is an understatement. He has restored eight classic cars and showed one at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, considered by many to be the world’s best car show. He hopes to show this Bentley there.
The mid-1930s were the glory years in the automobile business. New innovations were happening constantly, along with frequent styling and improved luxury features.
This Bentley is a fourpassenger car, has suicide doors, a windscreen that opens up, an elegant wood dashboard, a thermostat that controls the grill bars for ideal engine temperature and is righthand drive. This 1934 car has Servo brakes, a kind of early power brake system sometimes called a brake booster.
I asked what he paid for the car, his total investment and current market value. Johnson’s reply was, “too much” for the first two questions, and “not enough” for the last question.“I think I paid too much for this car, I think I have done a little more than I should, and also Bentley prices have gone down dramatically in the last three years,” he said.
So I can’t tell you the current market value, but I’m pretty sure his Bentley is worth a lot more than what I have sitting in my garage.