It’s all getting very real

Yesterday I drove my 1947 MkVI Standard Steel Bentley to AllCargo Express in Richmond BC and left it there for consolidation into a container, shipping to Southampton and then delivery to a friend in Norfolk. It was nice to meet AllCargo’s Marie Takemura in person as I’ve been emailing with her for a while about shipping my fleet to the UK for my next emigration, this time to Scotland.

This process has been entirely theoretical and hypothetical – until yesterday. I wiped the condensation off the Bentley’s windscreen, moved the choke control on the steering wheel to the right, hand throttle to the left, and thumbed the chrome starter button. As always, B70CF rumbled into life. The car must be presented for shipping with a ¼-tank of fuel or less, and a day earlier the fuel gauge had started working for the first time in five years. It showed half a tank, so I cruised around to use some of the fuel. I normally drive 120 miles and fill up, but this time I went 150 miles and didn’t.

Pressing the starter to take the car for shipping to a new country made it very real all of a sudden. This is actually happening. It’s quite a big symbolic step, and the Massey Tunnel was adding to my stress level. The fuel gauge might be working or it may just be teasing: the Bentley is positive earth and has Lucas parts, so there is an element of randomness. The tunnel on Highway 99 is comically inadequate even with daily contraflow, and has huge volumes of traffic on two lanes with no shoulder.

And I had driven 30 miles beyond my usual fill-up miles. I had spare fuel in the boot, but if I were to run out of fuel in the tunnel, that would make me hugely unpopular. Highway 99 through the tunnel is the continuation of Interstate 5 which takes you from Mexico through LA and San Francisco to Portland, through the border and to Vancouver, so blocking this main road artery causes the equivalent of a traffic heart attack. Driving through it with possibly not enough fuel gets your full attention. There was no problem in the end, but parking it for the last time in Canada, taking my BC collector plates off it and walking away was sobering.

The Bentley will now be heading for the Panama Canal en route to Southampton. As it is substantially more than 40 years old, UK registration doesn’t require any testing or complications – it just gets a period UK registration number plate and will then be delivered to Norfolk where an old carinventing friend from kit car days will do some deferred maintenance on it. He will be working with me on developing the Ayrspeed two- door soft top Silver Cloud conversions and the MkVI-based blower Bentley

lookalikes, so his getting familiar with the MkVI Bentley mechanicals will be useful.

The MkVI Bentley has been as reliable as the 1957 Bentley S has been unreliable, but the steering is very sloppy and the engine has a vibration. I know what’s wrong with the steering – the kingpins are shot. The Bijur chassis lube system on old Bentleys comprises a pedal in the cockpit, an oil reservoir on the bulkhead, and a tracery of fine brass pipes running all over the chassis, but kak and sludge from ancient oil blocks them up, hence the shot kingpins.

I actually have the full repair kit, but would rather use some of the good secondhand bits I may or may not have. All Rolls Royce and Bentley parts are hugely expensive, so you grab them whenever they come up for a good price. As a result, I have a pair of MkVI front hub assemblies, and probably two sets of the slightly later R-Type’s hubs. If the best set of R-Type kingpins and hubs can be bolted to the MkVI, that solves the wayward steering and also confirms that the new splined hubs for the replacement 21in Bentley wheels for the future specials will bolt straight on to the MkVI axles – adaptor hubs are available to fit the big Blower-spec wire wheels to the 1946-52 MkVI axles, but the 21in wire wheels and splined hubs bolt straight on to a 195255 R-Type.

The planned move from

BC to Scotland is also putting some additional pressure on the project list. The Mini Marcos is definitely coming with me. This now has a 1974 Canadian registration in my name, so it will bimble peacefully off the ship and into the UK as a taxand MoT-free 40+-year- old, just requiring RHD headlights to be legal. The Mini Marcos will remain LHD, the way it was built in 1974. In tiny cars that’s no problem at all under way, and helps you to drive on the right in Europe. You can go through burger drive-thrus backwards anyway...

A slightly hairy task was getting the original Mini Marcos laminated windscreen back in. It was fitted in 1974, but came out when I painted it, and then I couldn’t get it back in. Murray, the local glass guru, had a go with new rubbers, but no luck. Eventually he took it away and ground a quarter-inch off the top, and managed both to do that and get it back in the car without cracking it, which was a relief and a tribute to his skill.

I have been flip-flopping between deciding to keep or sell Pimple, the 1990 RSP Mini Cooper. At some point this will shoot up in value as it is one of the 1650 reintroduction 1990 RSP Mini Coopers, and is in almost rust-free condition. With just 46,000 miles and matching numbers, it is also one of the 200 RSP Coopers exported to Japan and 120 times as rare as a 1960s Cooper S. When those numbers sink in with Mini buyers, the value of the RSP Coopers will rocket, but it hasn’t happened yet. If Sod’s Law is applied, selling my car would add ten grand to RSP values a week later. But the car also has downsides. It would need an MoT and road tax on arrival in the UK, and the engine bay is jam-packed with stuff like air conditioning and power brakes – why on earth would a Mini need power brakes? – plus an oil cooler and many emissions widgets. I changed the rad and the starter, and the resultant acreage of missing skin was impressive. Luckily the car’s red so bloodstains don’t show, but I don’t like working on it and really, it has to go.

Visiting the still-stationary S1 in the MkVI – Iain was using up petrol to get down to a quartertank before the MkVI got loaded on its ship en route to the UK.

ABOVE: The MkVI’s collector plates are cashed in for a refund – they represent both road taxes and province-organised insurance. Iain wonders if he can get the car’s 1947 British plate reissued?

ABOVE: Iain wants to know why this rarest of all Mini Coopers isn’t also super valuable. It’s one of just 200 built, and comes with all the possible goodies fitted as standard, including aircon.

ABOVE: The original 1974 windscreen was successfully refitted to the Mini Marcos after some of the top was ground off. That was a relief because although new screens are available from Marcos Heritage, Iain’s keeping the car as original as possible.

ABOVE: In Iain’s ownership, the Bentley S has travelled just seven miles under its own power and about five times that many on various flatbed recovery trucks. Grrr.