Tabla de contenidos para Issue 40 - Jan/Feb 2024 en Rolls-Royce & Bentley Driver

A 90th birthday might not be as important as a centenary, but the Silent Sports Car Club threw a fine party, regardless. Why wait? In ten years, who knows where we – and our cars – will be. We have a report on page 22 and before that, a close encounter with two lovely Derby Bentleys only a year apart in age, but differing in coachwork and engine size. Almost exactly 70 years passed between the arrival of the Derby Bentley and that of the Bentley Continental GT, so we mark a 20-year anniversary for that model in this issue too. As revealed in our insightful history by ex-Bentley engineer Andy Feaver on p.42, the Bentley brand was in an oddly similar position to that of 70 years before: a…

Quite who deserves the credit for that splendid slogan is not certain, but there is a clue in a Daily Telegraph report from October 1933, recounting a luncheon given to mark the new car’s launch: ‘Mr W.M. Cowan said their aim had been to produce not a racing car but a very fast sports car, very safe and very silent.’ If not Mr Cowan’s idea, perhaps someone from Rolls-Royce attending the same lunch mentioned the thought to their advertising agency – or perhaps it was conceived early in the development of the car. After all, it works as a mission statement as well as a sales pitch. Press advertisements usually remained simple: the name of the marque, the slogan below, then a picture of a jolly nice car in a jolly…

I joined Bentley in August 2003 as a graduate engineer and was lucky enough to witness first-hand the revolution of Bentley under new owners VW. My career took me through a range of engineering roles and finished as the Module Leader for Body and Exterior on the current 3rd generation Continental family in 2020. I am passionate about the company’s recent history and the 20th anniversary of the launch of the Continental GT is a great opportunity to tell, for the first time, the full story of what actually happened, through the eyes of those who were there. The Continental GT, in its 552bhp all-wheel drive 190mph+ majesty, was a car that, in many ways, was a long time coming. It was the first all-new, ground-up product of the revitalised…

FEATURE CAR ROLLS?ROYCE SILVER WRAITH HOOPER SEDANCA You might think that with various highly personalised Rolls-Royces in his life, Nubar Gulbenkian would have cherished them above all other transport. But which of his cars is featured as a sketch on the back cover of his memoires? The dust jacket of Pantaraxia: An Autobiography (Hutchinson, 1965) depicts none of the above, but rather an Austin FX4 taxi modified by FLM Panelcraft with a brougham-style body, carriage lamps and wickerwork covering on the exterior panels. Perhaps he liked it for its silliness, perhaps because it was unique – after all, plenty of people had Rolls-Royces with eccentric coachwork – or perhaps because it was the most practical for London use. Gulbenkian’s famous remark on the car went thus: ‘It will turn on…

On Sunday 15 October, a bright and sunny day, visitors from all over the UK and Europe - including Denmark, Germany, Italy and Switzerland -gathered in Derby for a day of facts and friendships, at our East Midlands Section’s Silver Shadow Workshop. Hosted by Mike and Christina Wild at their modern facility on the outskirts of Derby, there were five technical focuses that ran in parallel through the day: bodywork, electrics, the hydraulic systems architecture, engine hydraulics and routine maintenance; each with a specialist tutor. There was opportunity for hands-on experience fitting seatbelts, as well as plenty of demonstrations by our team of experts. There was also a mini-exhibition of engines, including a 6.75-litre Bentley version of the familiar V8, a Bentley Turbo V8 and the RollsRoyce IOE straight-six that…

EVENT REPORT DERBY BENTLEY 90TH ANNIVERSARY The year 2023 signifies several important milestones for Bentley, among them being the 90th Anniversary of the launch of the Derby Bentley – the Silent Sports Car. To mark the anniversary, the Silent Sports Car Club put together a neverto-be-repeated event; a four-day rally, centred at Cranage Hall, Cheshire. The club, a friendly and enthusiastic bunch, exists for those who own, are interested in, or who admire Derby Bentleys. As the organisers of both the 70th and 75th anniversary gatherings for the Derby Bentley, they had set their sights on surpassing all that had gone before. The seven-strong organising committee worked for some 18 months to assemble 102 Bentleys for the event, in what is thought to be the largest gathering of the Derby-era…

How ridiculous that this car should be 20 years old. It dates from before the era of smartphones, something that seems to have been with us for ages. In 2003, Roger Federer won his first Grand Slam at the age of 22 and broadband internet was a welcome novelty. Around the time in late November that Concorde made its last flight, this car was probably nearing completion. It’s the 20th Rolls-Royce Phantom built (though not registered until 2004) and was thus one of the first of the Goodwood-era Rolls-Royces. Yet in looks and above all in feel, it’s hardly aged at all. ‘It’s still like a new car,’ says Stephen Fabman-Beker. ‘You press the start button and it fires after a nanosecond. It drives exactly as it did when I…

PERSONAL CHOICE GABRIEL BENNETT I retired from secondary school teaching after 33 years and received a lump sum. I considered how I might invest it whilst deriving more enjoyment than seeing it as a bank balance – and earning what was in 2015 a pitifully low rate of interest! There was one obvious answer for a lifelong petrolhead… buy a classic Rolls-Royce or Bentley. The following year, I read an article by Jack Grover in Classic Car Buyer, one of their ‘Tried and Tested’ features on a car I thought was very attractive. I sallied forth to Colbrook Specialists near Peterborough, the nation's classic car capital! There I viewed and test drove a 1991 Bentley Eight in superb condition and a 1997 Bentley Brooklands in equally good condition, but with…

STAFF CARS SILVER SHADOW PROJECT Surely it’s time we got this car running as it should. Though we made the car start and run steadily enough soon after we acquired it in 2022, it never drove well, seeming terribly down on power or responsiveness. An attempted tuning session with our local Rolls-Royce & Bentley specialist, Ross McLeod of Mulsanne Motors in Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, established that nothing was too far from where it should be, but that the carburettor jets were seized. Serious doubts existed over the state of the fuel supply – a bad pump? Blocked lines? Sort these flaws and it should be fine. This was enough to provoke a carburettor rebuild, which I performed myself with the kit available from Flying Spares. All seemed to go well…

COVER STORY DERBY BENTLEY ANNIVERSARY If ever a car-maker’s financial success was at odds with the glory it generated on track, it was Bentley in the 1920s. In truth, it wasn’t unusual even for apparently successful marques to scrape through near bankruptcies from time to time, as an expensively developed new model failed to increase sales as anticipated, or racing exploits cost even more than the resulting publicity could recover. Walter Owen Bentley had lost control of his company in 1925 when Woolf Barnato paid off the debts and acquired a majority shareholding, but W.O. worked on alongside his new Chairman to inspire the company to further glory at Le Mans and elsewhere. Barnato, though, found the need to inject tens of thousands of pounds into the business every year…

VOLUME OVER VALUE I’m sure most readers will also subscribe to magazines that track the general classic car auction market, and the consensus is that the market remains soft but that it is by no means a time to panic. One article caught my eye recently in Classic Cars magazine where John Mayhead noted that ‘Although the number of cars offered rose, the mean sale price and sell-through rates were significantly down’. John concluded that sellers are holding on to good cars rather than letting them go at lower-than-expected values, i.e. there isn’t a ‘fire sale’ in the market. The situation in the Rolls-Royce and Bentley auction scene is remarkably similar. The number of motor cars sold has again increased to 860, but overall and average values have decreased: How can…

Send an email to rrb.ed@kelsey.co.uk or write to: The Editor, Rolls-Royce & Bentley Driver, Kelsey Publishing Ltd, The Granary, Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding, Kent, ME18 6AL THE BENTLEY CORNICHE We would like to clarify certain aspects of Richard Gunn’s article ‘The Spirit of Experimentation’ on the Bentley Corniche which appeared in the September/October 2023 issue. I write as a Trustee of the WO Bentley Memorial Foundation and have consulted in detail with Ken Lea, who was the instigator and leader of the Corniche project from its conception in 2001 and is familiar with the surviving original documentation about the Corniche in the Experimental Files and in the Evernden and Robotham papers. Ken is also the Chairman of the WOBMF. Our first point concerns the origins of the Bentley 3½…

The pinnacle of the W12-powered cars was announced in 2009 as the limited-edition 621bhp Supersports featuring ZF's 'Quickshift' technology which halved shift times and enabled double downshifts. The Supersports would make a limited-edition return with the second generation, production limited to 710 cars in recognition of the 710PS power output. Bentley retains examples of both first and second-generation Supersports in its heritage collection. The Supersports is very obviously different from the regular GT as soon as you open the door. Gone are the rear seats, a slender carbon strut brace and neatly trimmed shelf taking their place, but when you stab the starter button it's clear that this is more than a cosmetic job. There's a harder, more metallic edge to the exhaust note, with just a hint of crackle…

As 2023 draws to a close, we can look back on another successful year for the Club, and particularly reflect on the past motorsports season. At the end of November, the second annual black-tie Competitions Dinner saw the presentation of awards across a variety of categories, with the most coveted accolade being the Frank Clement Memorial Trophy for Racing Driver of the Year. As we closed for press, the name of the winner was still unknown, but several names had good reason to be in the frame. One is Competitions Captain Ben Eastick, recipient of the award in 2022 who claimed his third successive victory in the blueriband Times Trophy Bentley scratch race at the Club’s 75th annual BDC Silverstone race meeting in August. Another is the evergreen Clive Morley,…