Bentleys versus France – a brief history
SPEED SIX VERSUS THEBLUE
TRAIN 1930 Arch bounder Woolf Barnato wagers he can crack out Cannes to London faster than the high-speed rail link of the time, Le Train Bleu. Despite a lack of handy petrol stations on the blast north through France (some things never change) and tyre issues, the car beats the train – probably for the irst and last time in history. SPEED SIX VERSUS LE MANS 1930 On a roll, with backto-back victories in ’27, ’28 and ’29, the Bentley boys rock up at Le Mans in 1930 to ind their Bentleys inferior to the supercharged Mercedes. Barnato (it’s that man again) sets about making such a nuisance of himself that Caracciola breaks his engine. The 6.6-litre Bentleys cruise home irst and second. SPEED 8 VERSUS LE MANS 2003
Fast forward 73 years and Audi takes a year o from Le Mans domination to help sister brand Bentley dominate Le Mans. The car’s the deeply handsome Speed 8 (with a then unfashionable closed cockpit), whose 4.0-litre turbocharged V8 sounds suspiciously like Audi’s, and whose success is suspiciously masterminded by the same squad (Joest Racing). Woolf Barnato not involved, for once.