Bentley’s world
We all know about Crewe and Le Mans. But the Bentley legend was forged all over the world, from battlefields to Brooklands
Locating the highest highs and lowest lows
1 DONCASTER
Meticulously engineered. Heavy. Massive engines. WO Bentley was a locomotive obsessive – a ‘devoted slave’ he called himself. Even now there’s a parallel between the hefty Mulsanne limo and his four-year apprenticeship in the Yorkshire rail yards of the Great Northern.
2 THE ISLE OF MAN
How close was Bentley Motors to never existing? In his first proper race, the 1909 Isle of Man TT, WO crashed his bike into a wall at 50mph. ‘Luckily, I took the brunt of the shock with my chest, rather than my head,’ he would later recall. Further visits cemented his reputation as a decent racer.
3 WEST LONDON
At the National Motor Cab company, Bentley learnt how to manage car repairs and drivers. In 1912, WO and brother HM started Bentley & Bentley, the UK sales concession in Hanover Street for DFP, and took on some hillclimbs in the French dasher. After the war, Conduit Street and New Street Mews became the HQ workshops of the new Bentley Motors – at least until the bellowing engines demanded relocation to a less populous area.
4 BROOKLANDS
The name of an eccentrically brilliant coupe (and less brilliant saloon), Brooklands in Surrey is steeped in Bentley folklore. WO took part in his first car race on its banked curves in 1913, finishing second. Victories followed and drivers such as Birkin and Barnato cut their endurance racing teeth in numerous races through the ’20s.
5 THE WESTERN FRONT
Bentley’s revolutionary BR1 aero engine, built at Humber in Coventry, took over from failing Clerget motors on the Western Front. The more powerful BR2, when fitted to a Sopwith Snipe, was a deadly combination. Come the end of the war, the Royal Commission awarded WO £8000 – enough to set up Bentley.
6 CRICKLEWOOD
The British car industry was ensconced in the Midlands, but Bentley wanted a London address. Oxgate Lane proved the base for a decade of remarkable sporting, if not commercial, success. Its location certainly attracted the right sort of chap: the current Lord March’s grandfather worked in the service station as a mechanic for a time, learning the ropes.
7 LE MANS
‘We got such a hold on the Sarthe race that, by degrees, we succeeded in driving out the opposition, the most successful and economical way I know of winning a race,’ said WO. Success at Le Mans (dominance in the ’20s, that win in 2003) was never about romance for Bentley – it was always about sales.
8 CANNES
Not only the start line for Woolf Barnato’s Blue Train race, but also WO’s favourite holiday spot and the blueprint destination for the GT driving experience Bentley embodies. WO loved to cruise down in a day, ‘hour-byhour by myself, chewing a few apples and sandwiches on the way’.
9 GROSVENOR SQUARE
Home of the Bentley Boys. WO: ‘The public liked to imagine them living in Mayfair flats, drinking champagne in clubs, playing the horses and the stock exchange, and beating furiously around race tracks at the weekend. Of several of them, this was not an inaccurate picture.’
10 DERBY
‘The sad survivors of an extinct motor car’ were sent north after Rolls-Royce bought the collapsed firm for £125,275 in 1931, starting a 60-year-plus badge engineering project.
11 CREWE
A potato field with good access to the nearby railways, the Pyms Lane site was bought by Rolls in 1938. It wasn’t until 1946 that the first Bentley, the Mark VI, rolled o the production line as Merlin engine production took precedence during the war. Crewe now employs some 4000 workers.
12 WOLFSBURG
The carve-up of Rolls and Bentley assets in 1998 was a messy bodge, with neither VW nor BMW getting what it thought it had bought. But the subsequent wrangling eventually produced a great result all round: VW invested heavily in Bentley, BMW in Rolls, and both thrived.
WO Bentley loved to do Cannes in a day, ‘hour-by-hour by myself, chewing a few apples and sandwiches on the way’