History Of Bentley Recalled By Its Founder

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28795, 16 January 1959, Page 12

History Of Bentley Recalled By Its Founder

TAURING the tost hslf-cen-tury of motor-racing, many famous ears and their drivers have caught the public's imaginatioifr and one of the most outstanding in this respect must surely be Bentley. But while the name of these mce-famous racing cars still survives in luxury saloon cars, there nust be few who recall the names of the once-celebrated “Bentley Boys,” who consistently drove their cars to victory at Brooklands and Le Mans. J. D. Benjafleld, H. R. S. Birkin, Glen Kidston, Jack and Clive Dunfee, S. C. H. Davis, and Woolf Bamato were ance household names in the same way as Stirling Moss, Mike Hawthorn, Harry Schell, Jean Behra,

and Tony Brooks are today. They are not forgotten in their own generation, and the name Brooklands in itself conjures up visions of roaring machines and champion drivers. Bentley The Mon Yet the greatest enigma of all was Bentley the man. The car made bigger headlines and was probably better known than pre-sent-day Ferraris and Vanwalls, but of the person who designed and built them, the public knew little then and knows a great deal less today; although the Bentley marque still flourishes under the Rolls-Royce banner. Now, 30 years after the Bentley’s greatest exploits, in an autobiography entitled W.O. (Hutchinson), W. O. Bentley has told the story of his car. It is not one of the all-too-usual success stories. Even when the marque was riding the crest of the wave, the engineer and designer whose dogged persistence conceived the car, was beset by financial troubles. He was not

the first, nor will he be the last, to find that motor sport can be terribly expensive, even for

How W. O. Bentley and his brother built the cars with the meagre resources at their disposal is perhaps the most inspiring and least known chapter of the story. Walter's first love was for steam engines, and as a child he watched with awe the great expresses thundering out of London.