Fabled thundering Le Mans race cars ... dare-devil Bentley boys ... and the most luxurious sporting performance motor cars ever built.
Laconically described as 'The fastest lorries in Europe' by the Italian carmaker Ettore Bugatti, Walter Owen Bentley’s huge, snarling race cars aggressively dominated motor racing for years. Revered and feared—driven in the 1920s by hard-partying young men known as 'the Bentley Boys', who beat all newcomers, winning the Le Mans 24-hour endurance race five years out of six and made the cradle of British motor racing Brooklands their own and developed into the world’s most admired sporting motorcars.
The Bentley Boys were high-living young London sportsmen who predated the jet-set, they partied in London Society for half the night, then drove to France for gruelling 24 hour road races. They forged a reputation for good living and blazing racing successes that amazed the motoring world and endures to this day.
Bought by Rolls-Royce in 1931 after running into financial trouble, Bentley languished in semi-obscurity for half a century as Rolls-Royce focused on its own marque. Ironically, when Rolls-Royce hit serious financial problems in the 1990s, Bentley emerged from the wilderness, its glories revived with mighty turbo-charged luxury super cars and saved the company from going under. Bentley reclaimed its performance luxury driving identity.
Sounds like an exhilarating story from Boys Own Paper? Happens to be true! A history crammed with colourful characters.
Today, free of Rolls-Royce control, Bentley, now owned by VW, builds about 8,000 cars a year, outselling Rolls-Royce, owned by BMW by about six to one.
Reg Abbiss is the author of The Bentley Story and was a BBC News reporter for 12 years programming & conducting interviews. He also spent sixteen years as a presenter on radio, TV, as well as newspaper and magazine interviews and later he was principal spokesman for Rolls-Royce and Bentley Motor Cars.