Table of contents for Issue 42 - May/June 2024 in Rolls-Royce & Bentley Driver

On June 15th, exactly 100 years will have passed since John Duff crossed the finish line at Le Mans in the Bentley 3-litre he had shared with Frank Clement. That win changed Bentley's fortunes overnight. A succession of further victories created a legend that's loomed over the Bentley brand ever since. Rather than tell the Le Mans tale yet again, we've assembled a bumper-sized issue to include many generations of Bentleys with a greater or lesser sporting edge. How much of that Le Mans heritage makes itself felt – and does it matter to us? One of the cars on our cover – the wonderful S3 Flying Spur – is subtitled ‘Gentleman's Express’, and that would be an accurate (if sexist) way to describe much of Bentley's output. Yet one…

Wayne Fitzgerald is a perfectionist. He is one of a very few practicing Australian veterinarians with a special skill in dentistry. It is a discipline that requires years of postgraduate study and practice before climbing the ladder step-bystep towards that glow of perfection, via some very challenging tasks — see the box on the next page. It is exactly the same approach he took with the restorations of his 1924 Bentley 3-litre and his 1934 3½-litre Derby Bentley. ‘If you are going to restore a car,’ says Wayne, ‘Why not the best — and one deserving of the best attention to getting it right?’ Melbourne holds an annual show of classic cars under the title of Motorclassica and it was at the car auction held at its first event in…

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 BRUNEI BENTLEY TURNS HEADS I am totally fascinated by the Bentley Val D'Isere as reported in the latest edition of RR&BD. The profile of the car from whichever angle you look at it, is just perfect; the balance of the design exudes perfection and I'm sure it creates interest wherever it goes. I think the reduction in overhang at the rear sets the car off, coupled with the fact that the rear view is just ‘meant to be’. I don't think the design would work with a Rolls-Royce – I think there would be a conceptual conflict – but it certainly does for…

We're whirling ever upwards, left and right through the lanes and eventually climbing to a long straight between the shoulders of two mountains. Snowdonia is looking its best today, with bright sunshine and a sky almost as deep as the Circassian Blue on this S2 Continental. Next to me is Huw Williams from one of the best-known specialists in the classic and vintage Rolls-Royce and Bentley scene, the Real Car Co. Huw has an interesting take on this vehicle, which conveys a lot about the way it feels compared to its predecessors. ‘It's like a posh getaway car,’ he says. ‘It's got a lot of power and torque and gets going very well from a standstill. I guess you'd get three or four bank-robbers in here, alongside the driver, and…

One hundred years ago Bentley set in motion its legendary status at Le Mans – scoring the first of its six victories courtesy of John Duff and Frank Clement's 3-Litre Sport. To mark this momentous occasion, a special ‘Le Mans 100’ celebration race, entitled the John Duff Trophy and Frank Clement Cup, will serve as a main attraction on the programme at the Club's 76th annual Silverstone race meeting on 10 August. It's hoped that a magnificent grid of some 40 WOs (or Vintage) Bentleys will be lined up to help pay homage to the centenary of the Bentley's maiden victory in the legendary 24 Hours. Incidentally, the Club is looking forward to celebrating the marque's inaugural triumph with a special trip to La Sarthe itself for this year's race…

Michael Campbell is a self-confessed petrol head. His first car as a 17-year-old was a 1982 Alfa Romeo Alfasud Sprint Veloce 1.5, which used to ‘spontaneously break down’. His busy career in IT was accompanied by numerous breadand-butter cars interspersed with some supercars such as a Ferrari F355 GTS, Aston Martin Vanquish S and Honda 3.2 NSX, all manual! His career took a turn in 2010 when he joined forces with his wife to help his specialist change management training company, CMC Partnership Global, grow internationally. They eventually sold it in 2022. For his 40th birthday his wife gifted him an Aston Martin DB9 Volante, and over the time since he has added to his selection of fun weekend cars with both a 1971 Porsche 911T and a 1997 Porsche…

Rolls-Royce's apparent transformation from a car manufacturer to a fashion & luxury house gathered pace with the recent announcement of the latest bespoke Droptail build and the production of a limited run of special-series Ghosts, created ‘in tribute to the world of fashion’. The ‘Arcadia’ Droptail is the third of this brief run of coachbuilt cars, each created to a theme of its own. Some of the bullet points from the car's specification are eye-popping, even by Goodwood's usual standards: the wood sections took 8000 hours to create; the car features the most complex clock face in Rolls-Royce history for which assembly alone took five months; the timbers are protected with a bespoke lacquer created to protect them in tropical extremes of climate, which took 1000 hours of testing to…

If you appreciate classic Bentley and Rolls-Royce cars but don't claim to be an expert, you may not notice anything special here. After all, we're looking at a drophead coupé version of the familiar Bentley S-series Standard Steel saloon – two doors rather than four, a folding roof, but otherwise very similar. So what's the secret? For most of the S-series production run (1955-'59) there was no drophead version of the Standard Steel saloon. There was the Continental DHC, bodied by Park Ward in aluminium, of which 94 were built. Then there were other coachbuilt ‘specials’ offered by the likes of James Young, Graber and so on and mostly built on the standard chassis, while HJ Mulliner bodied 22 dropheads in their own allaluminium Style 7409. See page 42 for…

This story concerns a car that has worn two different names, and it's a tale that reveals something about the respective history – and changing fortunes – of the two marques. But it's also the story of a press demonstrator, a car that Rolls-Royce used to show off the very best the company could offer in 1973. Most car makers had a considerable press fleet with an ever-changing roster of cars covering every new and existing model, but for a firm like Rolls-Royce, there was so much value tied up in each vehicle and so much time taken to create it that one or two cars had to do the job of many. That's probably why this car appeared not only in an Autocar road test but as part of…

The purpose of this excellent event was to celebrate International Women's Day on 8th March and to acknowledge the significant contribution that women are making to the motoring industry. The WDSC ladies turned out in style, bringing with them a wide selection of different makes and models of classic cars: from Singer to Ford Mustang, VW Beetles to MX5s. Hosting this special event was the RREC Chairman Julian Foster and his wife Rosemary, who arrived in their 1962 Bentley S2 Continental. The centrepiece of the day was a stunning 2023 Rolls-Royce Spectre, kindly provided by Georgina Wood and the P&A Wood team. Visitors enjoyed a tour of the local Northants countryside in a splendid 1965 Commer bus and the chance to see the RREC's HQ and substantial Archive collection. Over…

This one, in fact! Michael Hanson is hardly a first-time Rolls-Royce owner, having grown up with them, and over the years, he's assembled a fascinating collection. But with interests stretching from his 20/25 Salmons Tickford Cabriolet to a pair of Silver Spur IV limousines, he still homed in on this Silver Cloud. ‘I've had a later Silver Cloud III convertible, which was quite a nice car, and also a Bentley S3 saloon that was a complete lemon – the floors were made of fibreglass. So I was only interested in a really good, genuine car. I remembered seeing this one with P & A Wood many years ago, then later with Real Car Co, so when it appeared with the Classic and Sports Car Centre, still looking as good as…

It can be hard to accept when such innocent good looks conceal bad deeds. Rather like the ‘butter wouldn't melt’ expression adopted by an angelic child accused of drawing on the walls, you could gaze at this graceful Bentley Flying Spur and assume nothing so pretty would do you wrong. Superb engineering, fine craftsmanship, aluminium bodywork – no rust there. And if it came with a fresh MoT and a promise to deliver it to your doorstep, you may well shake hands on the deal. Alan Rowlinson's decision to buy the car was an understandable one, then – many of us would have done likewise. As Alan admits, it was a case of ‘right place, right time’, with no pre-existing plan to seek out the best S3 Flying Spur he…

In a lifetime in the motor industry, one comes across some exceptional cars. A certain XJ-S Jaguar, the only Jaguar that has won Bathurst 1000, Australia's great long-distance race. Or the Porsche 956 that conquered Le Mans with the Australian, Vern Schuppan at wheel. The door blew off at over 200mph on the Mulsanne Straight, but it still went on to win. But surely the most prestigious car is the one I am gazing at now – the 1994 Bentley Turbo RL that once held pride of place in the London garage of His Highness Sheik Khalifa Bin Hamad Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar. This car has presence! It also has a dazzling array of special features, as you might expect with such provenance. It's based, of course, on a…

If you're reading Rolls-Royce & Bentley Driver we can assume you're already partial to large, gracious, luxurious classics. Quite a few of you, though, may not yet have one in the garage – or perhaps you've taken the plunge with a younger model from the SY or SZ generation, or indeed a 21st century Goodwood or Crewe machine. Whatever your position, if you're attracted by the 1950s splendour of the Silver Cloud, we think we can persuade you that ownership is not only feasible but straightforward. To find out more, we paid a visit to the Classic & Sportscar Centre near Malton in North Yorkshire. Father and son team Nick and James Szkiler and their Sales Manager Andrew Welham almost always have classic Rolls-Royce and Bentley motor cars amongst their…

Welcome to our fifth technical guide. And now, as fans of Monty Python will appreciate, for something completely different. After replacing the steering rack on a Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit II in our last column, we're back to jobs which most classic car owners could reasonably undertake…except this time on the most modern car we've featured so far: a 2003 Bentley Continental GT. Our test car is one of the earliest first generation Conti GTs, notable for being the first brand new Bentley released under VW's ownership. It was the first Bentley to be mass produced and, at a mere £110,000, the price was less than half that of the old Continental R. With its 6-litre twin-turbo W12 engine, this GT is an absolute beast of a car, but (how to…

SUPPORTED BY Flying Spares +44 (0) 1455 292949 www.flyingspares.com At the end of the last report, the Silver Shadow was busily creating a shiny green puddle under the front of the engine. The water pump, having held back the coolant for 35 years of storage, had given up the struggle once the car found itself in use again. A phone call to Flying Spares sorted the arrival of an exchange unit, but in late January it was dark and wet and cold, and the prospect of dismantling everything around the front of the engine and then lying in a freezing puddle (indoor storage was lost, temporarily but at short notice) did not appeal. I chickened out and handed the car over to Ross McLeod at our local Rolls-Royce & Bentley…