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Bentley History: The Saloons The Continentals The Concepts
© 1998
- 2007 Copyright & |
Bentley : Bentley and its Le Mans History
A late May day in 1923 and a 3-litre Bentley leaves London for the coast. On board are two drivers, one mechanic and a few spares. Spool 79 years and one fortnight to an early June day. As you read this another Bentley is on its way to exactly the same place: Le Mans. This time, of course, it will be cradled gently from within its purpose built transporter and, as far as spares are concerned, there will be at least enough to build an entirely new car. But the aim, then as now, is the same: to win Le Mans. Of course, 79 years ago, the Le Mans 24-hours was not regarded as the world's greatest motor-race. It was a little local gathering, attracting - with just one notable exception - an entirely domestic field. Nor was that exception a works machine, but the private transport of London Bentley distributor, John Duff. Sure, his teammate, Frank Clement was a Bentley employee and the only professional racing driver the works ever hired, but WO himself wanted no part in it. He dismissed idea of racing twice around the clock as quite mad and was convinced that none of the cars would last.
WO, you see, did not want to be at that race, a point of view considerably reinforced by a particularly grim train journey across France. Yet by midnight and just hours after the race had begun, he was convinced that Le Mans was quite the best event he had ever attended. He decided that, come what may, a Bentley would be back the following year with full works support. As it transpired, Duff and Clement damn near won all by themselves; they led and set fastest laps at will but a holed fuel tank relegated them to fifth at the flag.
The rest of the story is British automotive legend. Duff and Clement
duly won in 1924 in a car that, while still technically a private entry,
was prepared in the works by works engineers. The '25 and '26 races are
known in Bentley circles as the black Le Mans as a catalogue of bad luck
and poor judgement denied the factory victory at its first two attempts. |
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The 1927 attempt so nearly went the same way with the much fancied new 41/2-litre Bentley crashing at White House trying to avoid another car slewn across the road and then collecting the other two works cars. Just one, the 3-litre of Sammy Davis and Dudley Benjafield was able to extricate itself from the wreckage and, with a bent chassis, one headlight, a smashed wing and numerous other problems, it set about one of the greatest comeback drives in Le Mans history. It won by a margin that, to this day, has not been exceeded.
The 1928 race was barely less eventful with the same 41/2 that had crashed in '27 winning with Woolf Barnato and Bernard Rubin at the wheel. Sometime before the end of the race the car cracked its chassis, causing the entire contents of the radiator to drain away - with temperatures off the clock, Barnato nursed the car over the line. One more lap and it's unlikely he'd have made it.
By contrast, 1929 was a procession, the four works Bentleys, led by the new Speed Six proving so much faster than the rest of the field that they cantered to an utterly dominant win. Irritated by WO's constant instructions to slow down, Jack Dunfee enquired 'do you want me to get out and push the bloody thing?' Tim Birkin and Woolf Barnato cruised around to victory. But boring though that race was, were it not for WO's race strategy, it is entirely possible that Bentley would not have won its final Le Mans the following year. It faced the might of the works Mercedes team and, in Rudi Caracciola, Germany's greatest driver until the era of Michael Schumacher. Happily for Bentley, Mercedes had based its plans to beat the Bentleys on the latter's pace from the 1929 race; and as Mercedes would discover to its considerable cost, this gave little indication of the speeds at which the Bentleys could travel if they had to. The first surprise for Caracciola came on the third lap of the race when Tim Birkin, driving one of his beloved supercharged 'Blowers' came past at 125mph with two tyres on the grass and a third in tatters. Then the battle was taken up by Barnato in the same Speed Six with which he had won in 1929. It took many hours but by forcing the Mercedes to use its clutch engaged supercharger more and more of the time, it was eventually broken. Barnato and his teammate, Glen Kidston swept to Bentley's historic fifth and most recent win. At first it seems hard to see why all this matters so much to Bentley today. All the Bentley Boys are long since gone and the cars they raced then have little more than four wheels in common with those they race today. And yet it does matter, desperately. And spend any time at Bentley and you know it goes deeper than the veneer of historical awareness touted by most car manufacturers today. The cars may now been built in Crewe rather than Cricklewood but talk to anyone who works there and you will find a fundamental and unshakeable belief that racing is as much part of Bentley as the winged 'B' mascot. And that's odd because, before last year, no works Bentley had raced for 71 years. In fact, the explanation is simple and it's all down to WO. The founding features he gave the marque that bore his name are exactly the same as those that define the Bentley philosophy of today. He determined that a Bentley should offer a blend of speed, strength and quality unrivalled anywhere in the world and it is these principals to which the marque aspires to this day. And Bentleys must race: WO may have thought 24-hours a little excessive at first but racing was always part of his plan - indeed he took part in the 1922 TT himself, before any car raced at Le Mans. So by going back to Le Mans Bentley is, in fact, doing only what comes naturally and if some still ask why Bentley is returning perhaps the more pertinent question is why on earth it has waited so long. Simply put, when the bankrupt Bentley was bought by Rolls-Royce in 1931, ownership passed to a company with no history of or interest in racing. Racing was not part of the Rolls-Royce culture and while privateers continued to race Bentleys - some even made by Rolls - at Le Mans, the marque's great racing heritage was consigned to an interesting footnote in the history books. But while it is true that Bentley's return to racing comes as a direct result both of the enlightened attitude of its new owner, VW, the road back to Le Mans actually started 20 years ago. In the late '70s, Bentley was almost dead. As a brand it had no identity and as an entity it existed only for those who wanted a Rolls-Royce with a less ostentatious badge - and they accounted for just four per cent of production. But the decision in 1982 to turbocharge the Mulsanne saloon made the apparently moribund marque do something quite unexpected and, in its own way, thoroughly unbelievable. It got up and ran. Soon, with the introduction of the Turbo R and two door Continental ranges, Bentley was outselling Rolls-Royce. The spirit of WO, it seemed, was not dead but had merely been sleeping. But while many at Crewe through the '80s and '90s would have loved to return Bentley to Le Mans, financially it never looked likely. In retrospect that was perhaps as well: grossly under funded attempts by small sportscar manufacturers to take on the world's best and most generously funded sportscar teams rarely have pretty consequences. If you were at Le Mans last year, you will know what that means. The team turned up with a brand new car from the tyres up, save an engine derived from one used by its arch-rival and VW stablemate, Audi. Significantly and, some thought in-advisedly, the Bentley EXP Speed 8 prototype was closed and the only one of its type in the race. A closed car is more difficult to engineer, slower at driver changes, potentially heavier and forced by the regulations to use narrower tyres than its open opponents. But the rules also give it more power and, in its shape, a theoretical aerodynamic advantage. Two cars were entered, driven by a new breed of Bentley Boy - hardened professional racers in place of the carefree playboys of the '20s. The two team-leaders were Martin Brundle and Andy Wallace, both already Le Mans winners - Brundle a veteran of 158 Grands Prix and Wallace the most successful British sportscar racer of his generation. The team came together brilliantly and the car had already proven quick and reliable in testing. Everything seemed fine, so long as it didn't rain. They'd had hardly a lap of wet weather during testing but now storm clouds gathered over Le Mans. Estimates vary over how many of the 24 hours passed in the pouring rain, some say as few as fifteen though most estimates are near twenty. No-one, however, disputes these were the worst conditions to visit Le Mans in living memory. Brundle had led the race in the early afternoon thanks to his skill and some brilliant pitwork, but by suppertime his race was run. The aerodynamics were force-feeding water into an electronic actuator that told the gearbox when a new ratio was required. It eventually refused to issue further instructions, inconveniently as it was in sixth gear on the approach to a second gear corner. Brundle's teammate Guy Smith did his best but burned the clutch trying to crawl around the corner. Which left one car and 21 hours to run. Then it, too, refused to change gear. Happily, it stuck in fourth gear and was just able to recover to the pits where a 20 minute stop cured the problem, the path of the incoming water being blocked by the top of a bottle of Evian. Rejoining some way down the order, the rest of the race was classic Bentley fighting spirit, battling back up the leaderboard to third behind the two invincible works Audis at the flag. All those who saw it knew the atmosphere as Andy drove the car over the line would never be repeated, not even if and when Bentley wins the race outright. The hope had been to get a car to the finish; the reality was the team had returned Bentley to the podium of Le Mans after 71 years and at its first attempt. And when the drivers appeared on that podium not in their race suits but in white overalls, goggles and flying helmets the tears flowed freely. This was their homage to the founder, the man without whom none of these extraordinary events would ever have happened and whose memory that day they had honoured like it hadn't been honoured since Barnato and Kidston stood there with lit cigarettes in 1930. Yes, Bentley is going back to Le Mans to sell cars, just as WO went to Le Mans to sell cars but it is also going because that is where it belongs. It has taken a lifetime but Bentley, finally, has come home. photos: Rolls-Royce/ Bentley June 13th 2002
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Tim Birkin