100 BEST CARS

Mini, McLaren, Jaguar and Range Rover are easy leaders in Autocar’s list of Britain’s best-ever 100 cars. I’ve no problem endorsing the first couple of dozen but, notwithstanding Gordon Murray’s ingenious contribution, the Yamaha Motiv.e at 5 looks like lip-service to greenery-yallery. The Jaguar XJ220 also poses a question. It was neither a commercial nor technical success and needed a lot of fettling before it reached reality. Driving it was like looking at the world through a letterbox. The Aston Martins in the list are an odd bunch with no ground-breaking DB2, elegant DBS or Ian Callum DB7. Similarly it’s difficult to include a D-type Jaguar – OK on the Mulsanne straight but a bit of a handful on corners – and leave out the C-type which was more precise and exciting.
McLaren F1 (above): Collected daughter Joanna from school during my road test. She’s older now, still beautiful.
Austin-Healey Sprite. 71st. This was my second one at Turnberry. Wonderfully crisp, precise car.

Lotuses are questionable on grounds of quality and reliability but I’m surprised there is no Elan Plus2S. It was beautifully proportioned. I once did 300 miles in three hours with one. There you are the older I get the faster I was. I would not include any TVR; all I drove were just brute force and ignorance. Blower Bentleys were something of an aberration. I suppose they were glamorous but never won anything like the unsupercharged cars. Derby Bentleys are missing from the list. Surely the Silent Sports Car deserves better. Jensen-Healey – delete. Not well made, hastily modified and really quite dull. Same goes for the Daimler Dart SP250. The Edward Turner engine was ok but Daimler was so strapped for cash it had to cobble up a horrid plastic body that creaked and cracked.
One of my first drives in an E-type; Scottish Motor Show after introduction at Geneva in 1961 (below), with Jaguar apprentice Clive Martin.

No Bristols please. Except for the BMW-based 400 and the beautiful 404 they were heavy and lugubrious. I never went for the mystique so assiduously promoted by writers like the matchless Leonard Setright. Triumph Stag? I thought it was rubbish when I went on the press launch. Hillman Imp? I owned one and when it went it was OK; I drove it to Maranello where I had lunch with Enzo Ferrari, but it was not made very well. Same goes for any Avenger, even the Avenger Tiger. The press launch was on Malta where we couldn’t drive them far enough to grow suspicious of unreliability. The Morgan 3 wheeler or Plus 4 were fine, but the Plus 8 was where Morgan began to lose its way and power outstripped handling. I wouldn’t include a Delorean in any list except perhaps one on how not to develop a sports car. It was terrible. Reliant Scimitar? A definite maybe. Triumph TR5 - not bad until they put a wiggly independent back-end on making it pitch and curtsy. Triumph 1300 absolutely not. And why relegate the MGA to 95th? Shame

Range Rover. Deserves its place. Took this on the press launch by Goonhilly Down, 1970.



Love lists

Hillman Imp. On road test for The Motor with Penny Duckworth by door. Pre-launch picture so badges taped over.

100.Range Rover Evoque 99. Ginetta G40R 98. Vauxhall Astra 97. Marcos TSO 96. Honda Civic 95. MGA 94. Vauxhall Chevette HSR 93. Triumph Dolomite Sprint 92. Allard J2 91. Honda Jazz 90. Sunbeam Tiger 89. Nissan Juke 88. Invicta Black Prince 87. Noble M12 86. Lotus Carlton 85. Caterham Seven 160 84. Caparo T1 83. Rolls-Royce 10 HP 82. Triumph TR5 PI 81. Radical RXC 80. Triumph 1300 79. Daimler SP250 Dart 78. Morgan 4/4 77. Renault Megane RS 225 76. Noble M600 75. Lotus Sunbeam 74. Morgan Plus 8 73. BAC Mono 72. Gordon-Keeble 71. Austin-Healey Sprite 70. MGB GT 69. Bristol Fighter 68. Ford Cortina 1600E 67. Bowler EXR 66. AC Ace 65. Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow 64. Austin FX4 63. Napier-Railton 62. Caterham Supersport 61. Triumph 2000 60. Jaguar F-type 59. Morgan 3-wheeler 58. Reliant Scimitar 57. TVR Sagaris 56. Ford Escort RS2000 55. Bentley Continental GT 54. Ford Capri RS3100 53. Delorean DMC-12 52. Aston Martin V8 51. Ascari KZ1 50. Aston Martin V12 Vantage S 49. Subaru Impreza WRC 48. Hillman Avenger Tiger 47. Triumph Stag 46. Hillman Imp 45. Lister Storm 44. Rover P5B 43. Lotus Evora 42. Rover P6 3500S 41. Nissan Qashqai 40. Ariel Atom 39. Vauxhall Prince Henry 38. Aston Martin One-77 37. Rover 75 36. Jaguar XJ 35. Austin Seven 34. Bristol Blenheim 33. Lotus Cortina 32. Austin-Healey 3000 31. Aston Martin Vanquish 30. Lotus Seven 29. Land Rover 28. Jensen-Healey 27. Lotus Esprit 26. MG Midget 25. McLaren 12C 24. Morris Minor 23. Lotus Elan 22. TVR Speed 12 21. Rover SD1 20. TVR Chimaera 19. BMW Mini 18. Bentley Blower 17. Jaguar XF 16. Ford GT40 15. Rolls-Royce Phantom 14. Lotus Elise 13. Jaguar D-type 12. Ford Sierra RS Cosworth 11. Jensen FF 10. Ford Escort Mexico 9. TVR Griffith 8. Aston Martin DB5 7. Jaguar XJ220 6. McLaren P1 5. Yamaha MOTIV.e 4. Range Rover 3. Jaguar E-type 2. McLaren F1 1. original Mini

Works Austin-Healey 3000 rally car test. I am the fresh-faced youth.

Rolls and Royce

Inseparable as Gilbert and Sullivan or Victoria and Albert, Rolls and Royce created the world's most recognisable brand name 110 years ago, Wednesday 4 May 1904. They met at the Midland Hotel Manchester not only producing “The Best Car in the World” (Rolls-Royce was never modest), but aero-engine excellence throughout the Second World War and ever since.

Right: Merlin in a Spitfire.

Only a little of the credit belonged to The Hon Charles Stewart Rolls,

(below)

an Edwardian gentleman to his elegant fingertips, complete with uniformed chauffeur and mechanic, but famously stingy. The late Sir Thomas Sopwith described him as, “curiously unlovable.” Rolls felt he had little to learn from Royce, a northern engineer, a crane manufacturer with an infinite capacity for taking pains. But as an ardent balloonist and aerial adventurer Rolls’s lifestyle was expensive, and the sales company set up with £6,500 from his father, Lord Llangattock, needed a new line to augment his imported French cars. Flying exploits were his undoing. Rolls achieved the melancholy distinction of being the first pilot killed in a British air crash at Bournemouth on 2 June 1910.

Workaholic, obsessive, sickly Frederick Henry Royce’s pursuit of perfection knew no bounds and, ill from overwork, he dismantled his Decauville to make it function properly. It was a car, he concluded, “...marred by careless workmanship,” so he set about designing something better. The result was an experimental car Rolls drove out of the Midland Hotel's carriage court (demolished in the 1930s to make way for a reception area) and realised that this 2-cylinder was as smooth and quiet as a 4-cylinder. Rolls instructed his partner, Claude Johnson to take on the Royce car, and negotiate for C S Rolls & Co

(Royce below)

to have exclusive rights.

The great engineer and the parsimonious aristocrat signed their agreement on December 23, 1904. Claude Johnson thought double-barrelled names had a ring to them, and made his contribution to the motoring lexicon, inserting a clause stipulating that the cars would henceforward be known as Rolls-Royces.

Later one of the 40/50 cars was painted silver and called The Silver Ghost. It was the fashion to apply names to individual cars, rather like ships. The title stuck, and the Silver Ghost remained in production for eighteen years. Phantoms, Wraiths, Shadows and Spirits followed. Rolls-Royces were always beautifully made although scarcely inventive, and never above taking somebody else's component (an automatic transmission from General Motors, or a patent suspension from Citroën) and adapting it to its own exacting standards. An engine from Munich, transmission from Friedrichshafen, even an aluminium body from Dingolfing, has not been entirely out of character.

In 1914 the Admiralty instructed Lieut Walter Owen Bentley of the Royal Naval Air Service to find out why its new French aero engines were overheating. By 1916 he had designed one himself the Bentley rotary

(below)

, which saw service in Sopwith Camels, and was used by the RAF until 1926.

After the war Bentley wasted no time getting into car production. His 3 Litre appeared at the London Motor Show in 1919, yet the foundations of the Bentley legend were laid at the Le Mans 24 Hours race in France. Bentleys won it five times against opposition from Mercedes-Benz, Alfa Romeo, and Bugatti, but following the 1929 depression even the extravagant Bentley Boys had to economise. In July 1931 Bentley Motors called in the receiver.

Napier had not made a car since 1925, it was now predominantly an aero engine manufacturer, but was so impressed with the new 8 Litre opened negotiations to buy Bentley Motors. In September The Autocar confidently announced that an agreement only awaited formal approval. The receiver called for sealed bids, but the mysterious British Central Equitable Trust dashed Napier’s hopes. Weeks later the subterfuge was revealed. Rolls-Royce, learning of Napier's interest, had pre-empted its rival.

Bentley never forgave what he regarded as Rolls-Royce's deceit, and although he joined Bentley Motors (1931) Ltd soon left, forbidden from ever applying his name to a car again.

In 1933 Rolls-Royce announced the Derby-built Silent Sports Car, and with a few memorable exceptions, Bentleys became little more than badge-engineered Rolls-Royces. The exceptions included the splendid Continentals of the 1950s, with sweeping lines inspired by a contemporary Buick, and the new Continental developed by the VW-owned company. More in

The Complete Bentley also available as an ebook THE COMPLETE BENTLEY.

, Dove Publishing Ltd.

(right, WO Bentley bust at Bentley Motors, Crewe)

Goodwood 1914

Goodwood had a 1914 French Grand Prix Mércèdes at Bonhams in Bond Street in the run-up to the Festival of Speed. A hundred years ago WO Bentley purloined one of the works team cars in an obscure piece of espionage worthy of Hannay in The Thirty-Nine steps. The great racer had shown such speed and stamina over a 23 mile course near Lyon, that Bentley believed its secrets should be revealed. The race took place on July 4th 1914, a bare six days after the fatal shots that began the Great War had been fired at Sarajevo.
By the outbreak of war Bentley was effectively out of work. His family firm had been selling cars but trading soon ceased. Cars still had to be serviced but with his business in ruins for as long, it seemed, as the war lasted, WO wanted to make the most of his great secret scoop. He had been one of the first to adopt aluminium pistons in the DFP in which he set ftd for his class at the Aston Clinton hill-climb. He set a ten-lap record at Brooklands for a 2 litre car at 66.8mph (107.5kph) and a year later, with L8 aluminium pistons, raised it to 81.9mph (131.9kph).
He now wanted to put this breakthrough at the disposal of the nation. It would be just the thing, he was sure, for high performance aircraft engines. He sought out Commander Wilfrid Briggs, head of the Air Engine Section, which liased between the Admiralty and the engine industry. Briggs operated from a small wooden office on top of Admiralty Arch and captured WO’s attention at once. “The only officer in the navy as clever as Briggs was the man who appointed him,” wrote WO, recounted in The Complete Bentley.
By June 13 1915, less than a year after the grand prix, Briggs had WO Bentley gazetted as a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR), an elite bunch of civilian volunteers who obtained quick promotion for wartime officers into the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Briggs sent WO to Derby, where Rolls-Royce was making air-cooled Renault aero engines, to meet Ernest W Hives (later Lord Hives) with whom WO formed a friendship that lasted 20 years. Engineer Hives soon had Rolls-Royce’s new 200hp water-cooled Eagle engines equipped with aluminium pistons.
Henry Royce was adept at meticulous improvement rather than radical innovation. WO was determined he should get to know more of his adversary’s engineering. WO recalled that in 1915: “…a friend of mine tipped me off that one of the Mércèdes racing cars, which had swept the board at the 1914 French Grand Prix, had got stuck in England at the beginning of the war and still rested at the Mércèdes showroom in Long Acre. I thought it ought to be investigated. So I told Briggs about it and together we went along, representing the British Crown so to speak, with a ‘search warrant’. The place was in a fine old mess, but down in the basement lay a 4½ litre Grand Prix Mércèdes. We had it dug out, and soon it was being taken to pieces by Rolls-Royce at Derby.”
There was no search warrant of course and accounts of the legitimate wartime larceny differ. In one WO towed the Mércèdes to Derby behind Briggs’s Rolls-Royce. In another he recruited his old school friend Roy Fedden, later a distinguished engineer at Bristol Aircraft, and the pair raced along empty wartime roads from London to Derby, before towing the 1914 racer into the Rolls-Royce factory.
The precocious young Lieutenant also recommended that Rolls-Royce examine the contemporary double overhead camshaft Peugeot racing engine.

Lord March promoting the world's best motoring garden party

Bentley 3 Litre

Could a 1924 3 Litre Bentley do 70 in second? Third maybe, but although a bare chassis was guaranteed to do 90, its weight and with what they used to call the “windage” of even an open body would restrict speed to not much over 85mph. So I somehow doubt “Open Throttle” in the

Brooklands Gazette (later Motor Sport)

, writing enthusiastically in its very first issue that “With a slight pressure on the accelerator one can then speed up the Bentley in a few yards to fifty, fifty-five, sixty-five, and seventy quite easily—all on second. The leap forward when the increase of engine revolutions permitted by the sudden change from top to second, is a thing to be experienced to be appreciated.”

It was, he claimed, “one feature that may be described as unique… How many sporting cars will do seventy miles an hour in second gear?” His test car, moreover, had the five-jet water-jacketed Smith-Bentley carburetter, the 45BVS, used up till 1923, not the regular Speed Model’s two sloper SU G5s. Perhaps a 3 Litre Speed Model person can put us right.

Otherwise “Open Throttle” doesn’t materially contradict

The Complete Bentley also available as an ebook THE COMPOLETE BENTLEY.

(Amazon e-book - £12.31). This first Brooklands Gazette of July 1924 gave the price of a 3 Litre with 4-seat body as £1,125 and with two seats £1,100. My research was based on contemporary advertisements and other accounts. I gave the Red Label Speed Model a couple of decimals’ difference in the top gear ratio. You could have any colour you liked on the badges but speed models were all red. “Open Throttle” discovered the “system of dual controlled magnetos” but surprisingly doesn’t seem to have counted the spark plugs. He gives the weight at 19½cwt although that was for the chassis only. Bodywork added 5-6cwt. I think I prefer Motor Sport’s later practice of initialling contributors, such as WB and DSJ.

A lot of 3 Lire Bentleys were burdened by heavy saloon bodywork.

1924-1929 3 Litre RED LABEL SPEED MODEL

Essentially a development of the TT Replica, Speed Models brought in four wheel brakes, and twin SU carburettors. WO maintained that hydraulic brakes had been tried on EXP2, but production cars had a mechanical system based on Perrot principles, which had a shaft with sliding universal joints. The front axle section was increased to take the strain, and instead of cast iron linings as used in the rear drums, all eight brake shoes had fabric linings. The handbrake operated an additional set of shoes and a single adjustment beneath the floor took up lining wear on all four wheels. There was no servo, but WO and FT Burgess developed and patented a mechanical compensator used subsequently in Bentleys up to the 8 Litre. There were several stages of Perrot-Bentley brakes, improvements having been tried out on Burgess’s experimental car ME 2431, that was doing effective duty as EXP4. The stage 1.1 Perrots ran to 1926, stage 2, which pinned the sliding keys, to 1929. There were gearbox developments and a larger sump as well as a gradual thickening of the chassis frame from 0.144in (3.7mm) to 0.156in (3.96mm), and in 1928 0.188in (4.78mm). Chassis flexure was problematical. LJK Setright: “(WO) carried over to his cars the notions of scale he acquired in railway locomotive workshops. So far as his chassis were concerned, the effect was almost always disastrous; everything about them was of heroic dimensions and villainous proportions, the outcome being an aggregation of components that was grotesquely heavy without being particularly stiff. Indeed the main chassis rails, though of very thick channel section, were only 4in (10.2cm) deep and their inadequate beam stiffness made it necessary for supplementary trusses to be bolted beneath, an arrangement which improved matters in bending but did nothing to improve the torsional stiffness of the chassis.” The reinforcements were struts and stiffeners below the main chassis members giving the effect of a deeper beam section. The radiator header tank was enlarged, making the domed shell 1in (2.5cm) taller and adding dignity to the prow. In 1926 steel rocker arms were replaced with duralumin even though they proved fragile at Brooklands in 1927.

INTRODUCTION 1922

BODY various coachbuilt; chassis weight 20cwt (1016kg); 1925 23cwt (1168.4kg); maximum with body 26cwt (1320.8kg) to 28cwt (1422.4kg)

ENGINE 4-cylinders, in-line; front; 80mm x 149mm, 2996cc; compr 5.6:1, 6.1:1; 85bhp (63.39kW) @ 3500rpm; 28.4bhp (21.18kW)/l; RAC rating 15.9HP

ENGINE STRUCTURE 4-valves, double springs; hollow overhead camshaft gear-driven from front; cast-iron non-detachable cylinder head, cast iron cylinders; aluminium crankcase; cast aluminium 2.5gal (11.4l) sump with gear-driven pump; long securing studs from block to crankcase; two sloper SU G5 carburettors; 2 spark plugs per cylinder; two ML CG4 later some RG4 magnetos, Autovac fuel system; 5-bearing Laystall forged steel crankshaft; water-cooled, L8 hourglass or BHB split skirt aluminium pistons.

TRANSMISSION rear wheel drive; Ferodo-lined 42.25in (107.3cm) cone clutch; separate 4-speed A-type gearbox, or C-type on Speed Models; right hand change; one-piece plunger joint propeller shaft; spiral bevel final drive 3.78, or 3.53:1

CHASSIS pressed 35ton steel channel section frame, 4 riveted cross members; half-elliptic leaf springs (different leaves according to body weight) suspension; Hartford, Duplex friction dampers; 15.75in (40cm) drum brakes with Bentley-Perrot shafts to front; worm and wheel steering; 11gal (50l) fuel tank with 2gal (9l) reserve; Rudge-Whitworth centre lock wire wheels, 820x120 tyres. Dunlop after 1926

DIMENSIONS wheelbase 117.5in (298.4cm); track 56in (142.2cm); length 159in 403.8cm); width 68.5in (174cm); ground clearance 7.25in (18.4cm); turning circle short right 46ft (14m) left 42ft (12.8m).

PERFORMANCE maximum speed, 86mph (138.1kph); 24.3mph 39kph app @ 1000rpm;

0-60mph (96kph) 40sec; fuel consumption 20mpg (14.12l/100km)-25mpg (11.3l/100km).

PRICE chassis only, £1050, 1924 £925; complete car (mostly VDP) £1275-£1475; 1924 £1125-£1350 PRODUCTION 513

FROM THE BROOKLANDS GAZETTE, July 1924

THE sporting car, as a class, has characteristically more distinction than that possessed by touring types. Being essentially out of the ordinary, and representing the result of concentration upon a design intended to emphasise particular motoring qualities, the sporting car usually has quite an individuality of its own. Some sporting cars, of course, are much more conventional than others; whilst there are those which seem to stand quite apart from orthodox standards.

In the latter category one may place the three-litre Speed Model Bentley. This car embodies all the qualities which one has come to consider essential in a sporting car. In addition, it has features and characteristics quite its own. A brief review of the chassis reveals at once how interesting a proposition the Speed Model Bentley is, and this opinion is vastly enhanced when one takes the car for a trial on the road.

The engine is a four-cylinder monobloc of 2,996 cc. capacity and 15.9 h.p. on the R.A.C. rating. Its design has much originality, which has been well justified by the results obtained. There are two inlet and two exhaust valves in each cylinder, arranged in the head and operated by a totally enclosed overhead camshaft and rockers, running in oil. Both crankshaft and camshaft are carried in five bearings. The pistons are of aluminium, designed for high compression service. Cooling is by pump circulation controlled by an automatic thermostat. Ignition on a sporting car is, of course, a factor demanding the most careful attention. One usually has to “drive on the spark” more than is requisite on a touring car, and if one desires to obtain really the best running from the Speed Model Bentley one makes no exception to this rule with it. On this car one finds two M.L. high-tension magnetos, having a synchronised firing point control. The system of dual controlled magnetos enables one to obtain particularly effective ignition. Lubrication is by pressure to the main bearings and big ends, and by splash to the pistons and gudgeon pins. There is a pressure lead from the main oil supply to the hollow crankshaft, through which the camshaft bearings, cams and valve rockers are lubricated.

Carburation is by a five-jet water-jacketed Smith-Bentley carburetter. A notable point is that a petrol consumption of 25 m.p.g. at 30 m.p.h, is guaranteed. The speed model Bentley, considering its wide capabilities, is not under any condition excessive in fuel consumption. The clutch is of the inverted cone type, lined with Ferodo. It has compensated withdrawal mechanism automatically lubricated, and there is a special automatic lubricator for the clutch spigot. The four-speed gear-box gives ratios in the forward speeds of 9.35 to 1, 3 78 to 1, 4.72 to 1, and 3.53 to 1.

It is operated by a simple right-hand gate change carried on an extension of the box. The frame of the chassis is of particularly strong construction, and does not rely on the engine or gearbox for part of its bracing. Double Hartford shock absorbers are fitted to the back axle and single to the front. There are oil lubricated Wefco gaiters on all springs. Steering is by worm and wheel.

In a car of such advanced design as the Bentley, one naturally expects to find front wheel brakes, and the system of fully compensated internal expanding brakes operating on all four wheels and controlled by pedal is very effective. The hand brake operates direct on the rear wheels. Wear on the four wheel brakes can be taken up by a single adjustment.

The tank holds eleven gallons of petrol, and a two-way tap near the filling cap gives access to a reserve supply of two gallons. The cardan shaft is hollow and is loaded with oil through a plug, this reservoir providing an oil supply for the back universal joint. Chassis lubrication is by oil, supplied from an oil-gun through screwed oil plugs. The only grease cup on the chassis situated on the water pump. After the chassis has been lubricated it can be run for three months of normal mileage without further lubrication, apart, of course, from the engine’s requirements.

The wheelbase of the sporting Bentley is 9 ft. 9½ins., and the wheel track 4 ft. 8ins. The weight of the chassis is 19½cwts., and it runs on 820 x 120 m.m. tyres. The annual tax is £16.

From the foregoing it will be appreciated that the Speed Model Bentley is a particularly interesting car. Our road experiences with this model, although not at the moment as extensive as we should like, have convinced us that this car must possess a fascination for every sporting motorist.

The sporting Bentley is naturally a fast car. But that is by no means the sum total of its outstanding attraction. Very few sporting cars arc really docile in control, many are not at all comfortable to ride in. The Speed Model Bentley is a happy exception to this too prevalent rule. We drove the Bentley quite comfortably on top gear at an exceptionally low speed, and found it very docile in traffic and those places wherein “sporting” characteristics are not over appreciated. Owing to its high gear range one must, of course, remember that the four speeds are there to be used. Gearchanging is so easy a matter, however, that one finds not the smallest objection to always starting in first and to a fairly frequent use of the lower ratios in traffic. On each gear the car is instantly responsive its life and acceleration under all conditions being admirable.

Later Sloper carburettor

There is one feature of the Bentley that may be described as unique, and to this we would give due prominence. How many sporting cars, or cars of any sort, will do seventy miles an hour in second gear? Their number must be very few indeed. The Bentley, however, makes light of this. One can speed up in the ordinary way on the successive gears until one is going along smoothly and comfortably at, say, forty-five miles an hour on top gear. One then changes down direct to second gear, missing third - and things begin to happen. With a slight pressure on the accelerator one can then speed up the Bentley in a few yards to fifty, fifty-five, sixty-five, and seventy quite easily—all on second. The leap forward when the increase of engine revolutions permitted by the sudden change from top to second, is a thing to be experienced to be appreciated. The acceleration is quite remarkable, as remarkable as the fact changing down at forty-five miles an hour itself. The Bentley will hang on to round about the seventy mark on second gear indefinitely, and the change down at speed with a quick double-clutch is not unduly difficult. One can change into top at practically any speed, slow well as fast, and the Bentley will attain the neighbourhood of the eighty mark without much forcing.

Steering of the Bentley is delightfully easy, comparable in its comfort to that experienced on a high quality light car. The four-wheel brakes, operated by pedal, remarkably powerful, and very easy and smooth in operation. Although there is not an over abundance of seating room the Speed Model Bentley is quite comfortable to ride in.

The electrical and other equipment is very complete and the general lay-out of the car very pleasing to those who desire a high quality sporting vehicle which is quite

practicable for ordinary touring and exceptionally attractive amongst sporting designs for town and general use.

The price of the Speed Model Bentley with four seater body is £1,125 and with two-seater body £1,100, purchasers being afforded the option of choosing the colour of body and upholstery. The manufacturers are Messrs. Bentley Motors, Ltd., 3, Hanover Court, Hanover Street, London, W.1. The extensive Bentley factories are at Cricklewood. London, N.W. 2.

Interest in the Bentley is naturally enhanced by this car’s splendid victory in the French Grand Prix d’Endurance last month. The Bentley was the only British car amongst some forty competitors, and its outstanding performance throughout the race provided a notable tribute to British engineering in general, and to Bentley design and workmanship in particular Magnificently driven by Duff and Clement, the Bentley maintained a thrilling struggle with some of the best representatives of French automobile science throughout the twenty-four hours that the race occupied. This event is indeed appropriately named, a trial of endurance, for it is difficult to imagine a more exacting test under road conditions than this gruelling struggle of speed throughout a day and a night.

The Bentley had no mechanical trouble, and at the end of the race was in good condition and still lapping consistently. The distance covered by the Bentley in twenty-four hours with Duff and Clement alternately at the wheel, was exactly 2,188 kilometres, or 128 laps of the course. Second place was taken by the Lorraine-Dietrich, driven alternately by Stoffel and Brisson with 2,016 kilometres to its credit.

Merlin

Lancaster at Scampton, BBMF Spitfire and Hurricane, heated debate in The Telegraph about which was greatest. Yet they all relied on the Rolls-Royce Merlin. It is 70 years since the dambusters and 80 since drawings for the Merlin were completed the very day Sir Henry Royce died.

WO Bentley was instrumental in getting Rolls-Royce into aero engines. Working under Commander Wilfrid Briggs, head of the Admiralty Air Engine Section, he was sent to Derby, where Rolls-Royce made air-cooled Renault aero engines. WO recalled, “…a friend of mine tipped me off that one of the 1914 Mercédès racing cars, which had won the French Grand Prix, had got stuck in England at the beginning of the war and still rested at the Mercédès showroom in Long Acre. I told Briggs about it and together we went along, representing the British Crown so to speak, with a ‘search warrant’. The place was in a fine old mess, but in the basement lay a 4½ litre Grand Prix Mercédès. We dug it out, and soon it was being taken to pieces by Rolls-Royce at Derby.”

Ernest Hives (later Lord Hives) studied the Mercédès cylinder design and WO persuaded him that the resulting 200hp water-cooled Rolls-Royce Eagle engine should have aluminium pistons. In 1919 two Eagles with Bentley’s pistons were used in the Vickers Vimy that made the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic.
Merlin in a Spitfire, Duxford
Henry Royce set up drawing offices with teams of technicians at St Margaret's Bay Kent, and later West Wittering, creating a dynasty of aero engines of the 1920s and 1930s that culminated in winning the Schneider Trophy races outright. In 1931 Royce accepted a baronetcy in recognition of his design but it was soon apparent that the RAF needed something that could be made in large numbers.

In 1932 the ailing mechanic (Royce preferred “mechanic” to designer or even engineer) persevered with a new V12 in the face of Air Ministry indifference and prevarication. Rolls-Royce could see the need for it, calling it PV for Private Venture because the government wouldn’t pay for it. Developed from the Kestrel, and the R-type that had been successful in the Schneider Trophy Supermarine S6 seaplanes, the Merlin was not named after King Arthur’s wizard, but was one of a series designated by birds of prey. A merlin is a small falcon but as an engine it was straightforward, upright, of a sort with which the Derby firm was already familiar.
Merlin in a Hurricane, Brooklands
Later ones were developed to produce substantial power increases at high altitude, and by the end of the war specialist versions produced 2640bhp (1969kW). Rolls-Royce did not have capacity in its factories at Derby, Crewe, and Hillington Glasgow to meet the demand. Four times as many Merlins were needed to equip bombers like the Lancaster, so Packard made them in America and Ford set up a plant at Urmston, Manchester, not far from Trafford Park.

Rowland Smith of Ford guessed it would cost £7million, telling chairman Lord Hives that Ford could not possibly build engines from the drawings Rolls-Royce supplied. The tolerances were much too wide. Ford production machinery would work to much closer limits than Rolls-Royce, whose hand-finished engines were often widely different in power and reliability.

Drawings for the Merlin were completed on 22 April 1933, as Royce breathed his last. Yet weak and frail as he had been, the engine (after teething troubles had been fixed) was a masterpiece. The first ran on 15 October 1933 and Royce’s vision resulted in one of the most significant aircraft power units of the Second World War. Besides Spitfire, Hurricane and Avro Lancaster, Lincoln, Manchester II, Tudor and York, the Merlin powered de Havilland Mosquito, Handley Page Halifax and North American Mustang X as a replacement for its Allison. The Mustang continued to use Merlins in the Korean War of the 1950s.

SPEC: 12-cylinders, 60deg V; front; 5.4in (137.16mm) x 6in (152.4mm), 1,648.8cu in (27,021cc); compr 6.0:1; 1030bhp (768kW) @ 3000rpm @ 16,250ft (4940m) Merlin I to 1480bhp (1104kW) @ 3000rpm @6000ft (91830m) to 12,250ft (3740m) from Merlin XX; weight from 1385lb (629kg) Merlin I to 1450lb (647kg) from Merlin XX; 1640lbs (744kg) for 1565bhp (1167kW) Merlin 61 on.
STRUCTURE 4 inclined 45deg KE965steel valves per cylinder (4 valves parallel from Merlin G); sodium-cooled exhaust valves; Stellited ends to inlet valves; double valve springs; Silchrome valve seats screwed into heads; one shaft and bevel gear-driven 7-bearing overhead camshaft per bank; two two-piece cylinder blocks cast in RR50 aluminium alloy; detachable cylinder heads; wet high carbon steel cylinder liners; aluminium crankcase split horizontally; twin choke updraught R-R/SU carburettor with anti-ice heating; gear-driven centrifugal supercharger, 2-speed from Mark X; liquid-cooled intercooler; two mechanical fuel pumps on quill shafts; two magnetos; one-piece six-throw chrome molybdenum steel 7-bearing crankshaft; dry sump lubrication; 70 per cent water 30 per cent ethylene glycol cooling; centrifugal pump; electric starter; air compressor take-off for aircraft services
TRANSMISSION single plain spur 0.477:1 or 0.42:1 reduction gears to propeller from front of crankshaft.
PRODUCTION over 30,000

SUVs to Wait

It would be no surprise to see Bentley and Lamborghini shelve their SUVs. The VW Group is not being complacent over the Eurocrisis, unlike the French industry, which is in panic mode. It looked as though premium manufacturers might be profitable enough to press on almost regardless, leaving the volume producers to suffer from faltering sales. VW itself looked secure by outperforming the market, but it isn’t going to spend money recklessly. It makes Audis for not much more than it costs to make Skodas, Seats and VWs, and charges a whole lot more for better trim and a classy image. But the supervisory board is being slow to sign off the Bentley EXP9F and Lamborghini Urus. They would be nice projects to improve profit, Lamborghini hasn’t made any money for three years, but they are not essential for survival. Development costs are large and if it doesn’t need to spend, VW would prefer to keep the money aside for a rainy day. The board will make up its mind in November, when it plans cuts in some volume production and wonders how to deal with falling sales. It will look at spending on equipment and factories and is likely to delay the SUVs. The Bentley, shown as a concept at Geneva, would not have appeared until 2014. Based on an Audi platform 4,000 a year with super-luxury fittings it could have made Bentley some good money. Lamborghini would have made fewer to meet expected competition from Maserati, the Jeep Kubang and even Ferrari. The tempting target is Land Rover, which is raising its asking prices ever further with the new Range Rover and Range Rover Sport but, like partner Jaguar with the F-type, is facing critics who think it is pricing itself beyond what the market will stand in an economic downturn. (Top) A Bentley Sports Utility Vehicle of the 1950s. A Countryman with fold-out tables for upper-class picniques at the point-to-point.