The Blue Train Bentley

Bruce and Jolene McCaw of Medina, Washington settled any doubts about which 6½ Litre Bentley beat the Blue Train. Following research. They bought both. Was it the fastback (above) or the saloon, pictured below in June 2006 Motor Sport?

1930 GURNEY NUTTING 6½ Litre BLUE TRAIN SPEED SIX
Notwithstanding Terence Cuneo’s well-known painting, there was some conjecture that the Blue Train from Cannes to Calais had been outpaced with a different car. Barnato referred to it only as “my Speed Six saloon”. The car in the Cuneo painting, GJ 3811 was commissioned by Barnato with a sweeping roofline, and one of the first ever fastbacks in which the rearmost seat was placed sideways. The rakish black (and later also dark olive) Gurney Nutting body had smart gadgetry, a cocktail cabinet, and reputedly accomplished the dramatic drive in March 1930 as a result of a wager in a gentlemen’s club. The Blue Train ran from Cannes to Calais, Barnato aiming not so much to beat it, as show how easily it could be done. The company needed all the publicity it could get, it was on the brink of receivership, and as principal shareholder he was fretting.

In reality the contest demanded neither great speed, nor exceptional staying power, except perhaps from the crew of the car. Barnato set off with his golfing friend Dale Bourn, not from the railway station at Cannes - that would have looked like a stunt - but from the bar at the Carlton. They waited for word that the Blue Train was departing, finished their drinks, and left. There were no autoroutes. Fuel was arranged in advance overnight, Esso filling stations remained open at Aix-en-Provence and Lyons, and a tanker lorry at Auxerre, while the train made its leisurely progress. From Cannes it went west along the Cote d’Azur, stopping for 70 minutes in Marseille, before heading North for Paris where it wasted three hours going from the Gare d’Orleans to the Gare du Nord. The Bentley pressed on without a pause, reaching Boulogne with an hour to spare before the ferry, and getting to London in time for a celebration drink at Bourn’s club, The Conservative, in St James’s Street. It was 3.20 on the London Victoria clock, according to Barnato, and the Blue Train was not due in Calais for another four minutes. The pair then parked outside the RAC in Pall Mall for the hall porter to stamp their cards having averaged 43.43mph (69.89kph).

Writing this in The Complete Bentley, I was careful to take into account a possibility that the Gurney Nutting fastback was not the car that took part. In 2006 Mike Cassell wrote in the Financial Times about a re-enactment, trying to clear up the confusion. After US businessman McCaw bought the Gurney Nutting coupé illustrated in Cuneo’s picture, research suggested that Barnato may have used his saloon 6½. The McCaws tracked this down from its chassis number, reuniting it with its original Mulliner saloon bodywork, which had been re-mounted on another chassis.

They then owned both. Mike Cassell’s re-enactment left the Carlton Hotel in Cannes before dawn, finding a sprinkling of snow on the mountain peaks of the Napoleonic route. They were not burdened with finding where Barnato’s pre-arranged refuelling stops were, nor did they suffer a puncture. However they did manage a meal and a decent night’s sleep near Dijon, completing the 750 miles in 37 hours against Barnato’s in 20hr 35min.

INTRODUCTION first registered May 1930
BODY Gurney Nutting Speed Six.
ENGINE 6-cylinders, in-line; front; 100mm x 140mm, 6597cc; compr 5.3:1; 180bhp (134.23kW) @ 3500rpm; 27.28bhp (20.34kW)/l.
ENGINE STRUCTURE 4-valves, double springs; 8-bearing camshaft, 3-throw coupling rod drive; cast iron cylinder block with stainless steel jacket plates; single port block; 2 vertical HVG5 SU carburettors; two Champion plugs per cylinder; Bosch magneto and Delco-Remy coil; Autovac fuel system; 8-bearing crankshaft, with damper; water-cooled
TRANSMISSION rear wheel drive; sdp clutch; 4-speed C-type gearbox, right hand change; spiral bevel final drive 3.53:1.
CHASSIS pressed steel frame 0.188in (4.77mm), 7 cross-members; semi-elliptic leaf springs; Bentley and Draper friction dampers; self-wrapping, Dewandre servo mechanical brakes, front Bentley-Perrot; 15.75in (40cm) drums; worm and sector steering; 25gal (113.6l) fuel tank; Dunlop tyres 21 x 6.00, rear 21 x 7.00; Rudge-Whitworth centre lock wire wheels.
DIMENSIONS wheelbase 140.5in (356.87cm); track 56in (142.2cm); length 187in (474.9cm); width 68.5in (173.99cm); ground clearance 7.25in (18.4cm); turning circle 47.5ft (14.5m).
EQUIPMENT Smith and Jaeger instruments, white figures black faces, German silver parallel-sided radiator shell; Green Label badges. Zeiss headlamps; Bosch electrics; Hobson fuel telegauge; brake vacuum gauge
PERFORMANCE maximum speed 92mph (147.7kph)-100mph (160.9kph); fuel consumption 15mpg (18.83l/100km).
PRICE chassis £1800.
Detail from Dove Publishing: The Complete Bentley

Always a winner, Woolf Barnato (right with Sir Tim Birkin) the only drivers to win all three Le Mans 24-Hours races he entered. This picture captioned "a quarter of an hour before the start, 1929."

Bentley GTC Speed

BENTLEY GTC SPEED


December. Just the month for testing convertibles. Managed it just before the snow. But the top remained shut throughout a 500 mile round trip to Chichester with not much chance of basking in anything beyond the reflected glory of a £153,400 masterpiece. Prodigious acceleration, braking, 600 horse power, it could do, the factory says, 200 miles an hour and nought to sixty in a trice.

The Bentley is exquisitely made, but 200 miles an hour? You have to think of it as a sort of engineering endorsement. My Rolex Oyster Perpetual GMT-Master is watertight in 200 metres of water. I do not expect to be looking at the time 200 metres down, but it is good to know that I could.

The GTC Speed is a 2485kg (5478lb) (49cwt or two and a half tons in old money) luxury cruiser with the agility of a Focus RS. Heavy items have a lot of momentum; they can be very unresponsive, but the Bentley’s poise is perfect. The steering is weighted perfectly. Body roll is negligible. Its precision is exemplary. Modern electronics have transformed cars like this. Both GTCs have Sport Traction, which calms down the Electronic Stability Program (ESP) to help feel and control. In Dynamic Mode the GTC Speed has a touch of extra wheel slip for quicker response. Continuous all-wheel drive has good traction in all weathers, transferring pull between front and rear through a sensitive differential in the middle. If it detects a difference in grip at either end, power goes to the wheels that have most.

The GTC is serene. A Bentley is scarcely understated although somehow it keeps its dignity. The Speed title was revived in 2007, recalling the Speed Six of 1929, a 6½ Litre of a mere 180 horse power, which was less than the 240 of the 4½ Litre with Amherst Villiers supercharger. Interestingly the 4½ weighed half a ton less than the modern GTC.

Aside from the name and reputation, there is something self-effacing about this most powerful Bentley Convertible ever. There is nothing flashy, just good proportions, perfect precision although with a small caveat emptor over the tastefulness of the test car. I never much cared for Bentley’s wavy netting radiator. It is supposed to look like the stoneguards required at Le Mans in the 1920s protecting the real radiator, even though the loose rock strewn track has long been replaced. When Bentley won again at the Circuit de la Sarthe in 2003, it was billiard table smooth so the netting is an anachronism. It should be discarded, together with the test car’s turned aluminium instrument panel.

I would go for one of the six natural unbleached laser-cut wood veneers. It is a matter of taste of course, on which you might need a gentleman’s gentleman, like Jeeves, to pass judgement. He would caution stiffly on the quilted diamond pattern upholstery, “Not really you, sir”. It looks louche, like the furniture, I am told, you get in certain types of boudoir. Prefer one of the 17 premium grade leathers perhaps in the new shade, Aquamarine. Probably live with the hand-stitched Bentley logo. Family escutcheons are probably passé.

Otherwise faultless? Not quite. You can feel and hear road bumps. It is fine on a smooth surface but serenity runs short on grainy concrete motorways. Expansion joints make a B-r-r-p. It is not easy designing suspension soft enough to cushion noise, yet firm enough to provide tenacity at 150mph. Jaguar manages it, so must Bentley.

Bentleys are splendidly engineered in Germany, but it looks as though Germans don’t feel they are getting their money’s worth unless tyres send frissons up their spines. The engine is made in Crewe. Dr Porsche’s grandson Ferdinand Piëch’s magnificent W12 with twin turbochargers is smooth and mostly near silent. It growls on acceleration, not a racy noise like an Aston Martin or Ferrari but the boom, perhaps, of a double bass rather than a clarinet of gears and tappets.

The 6-speed ZF automatic’s gearshifts are virtually imperceptible; even on Sport setting you can only tell from the tachometer or the small print on the instrument display, that you have moved a gear. Controlling the shifts from little paddles behind the wheel, like in a racing car, seems an affectation.

Fuel consumption? Depends how you drive. It is possible to get down to single-figure mpg but I was getting 27, using the adaptive cruise control that keeps your distance from the car in front, even when it slows unexpectedly. A tiny radar sensor notices everything. And so do I. Note to Bentley on extolling features of the GTC Speed, like its drilled alloy foot pedals: I once received a memo from an editor obsessed with brevity, “Foot pedal,” it said, “is one word too many.”

WO Bentley

Walter Owen Bentley (1888-1971) was about as racy as his cars. The Bentley Drivers’ Club sanctifies him in a way he scarcely needs or perhaps deserves. As I wrote in The Sunday Times of 11 September 1988, he had been a flop at running his company, and Royce’s opinion of him was perhaps near the mark.

WO Bentley’s engineering was empirical rather than theoretical. A cornerstone of his reputation in 1920 was having made an indifferent and unreliable French aero engine into one of the most powerful used by the Allies in the First World War. He was not a mathematician, and the Bentley 3 Litre was the first time he had ever planned anything wholly original. He never claimed to be a designer. He had been “responsible for the design” of cars, which means he told formally qualified technicians what he wanted, and let them draw it up. Perceptive journalist and author Michael Frostick, who recognized humbug when he saw it, compared him with Enzo Ferrari, a motivator who knew what sort of car people wanted and led the team to achieve it.

Anthony Bird was more picturesque: “In the first years of the century racing car engines were composed of air and optimism encased in the least possible thickness of metal; designers were concerned primarily with making very large engines of the least possible weight, rather than with high specific output.” WO’s style was to make engines big rather than efficient. High compression ratios and fast crankshafts were too difficult.

WO made his engines light, with aluminium and magnesium alloy for the sump and camshaft housing, but was so concerned with strength and reliability elsewhere that, as Laurence Pomeroy, technical editor of The Motor and son of the distinguished Vauxhall designer pointed out, “…some items were grotesquely heavy such as the cam-action filler caps… yet the main chassis members came so far short of full capability (they were only 4in (10.16cm) deep) that they had to be buttressed by cantilevers. Racing Bentleys would have pedals and levers drilled for lightness, saving ounces, while pounds of metal were lavished at all four corners.”

Nowadays WO would have qualified for a knighthood. He managed an MBE, one rung below the OBE the Bentley Drivers award him. The secretive honours scrutiny committee of the 1930s was sensitive over private lives and while three marriages was OK (WO’s first wife Leonie Gore, whom he married on New Year’s Day 1914, died in the 1919 influenza epidemic) his second finished in divorce.

On 7 April 1920 WO aged 32 married 25 year old Audrey Morten Chester Hutchinson (Poppy) at Holy Trinity, Brompton. Racing driver Clive Gallop was best man and the couple moved to 7 Pelham Crescent, South Kensington. The marriage lasted until June 20, 1932 when Audrey sued for divorce. A decree nisi was granted on 12 December, becoming absolute on 15 June 1933, and WO moved to 54 Queen’s Gate, South Kensington.

On 31 January 1934 at he age of 45 WO married Margaret Roberts Hutton, 41, at Kensington Register Office. As Malcolm Bobbitt recounts, in his insightful WO Bentley The Man Behind the Marque, Breedon Books, 2003, The Times carried details of Mrs Hutton’s divorce, on the grounds of her frequent adultery with WO, and claims by her husband of £5,000 in damages. Supposing that the creator of the Bentley was wealthy turned out to be a mistake, however his brother was a partner in a good law firm, and the damages were reduced to £1,000.

Divorce proceedings at the time involved correspondence, detailing the couple’s residence at the Grosvenor Hotel, Victoria in May and June 1932, testimony that the BDC described as mere tittle tattle. WO Bentley died aged 83 on 13 August 1971. In 1989 Mrs Margaret Bentley died aged 98, having survived WO by 18 years. Rolls-Royce nurtured the Bentley as The Silent Sports Car for 60 years after 1934. German engineering recreated it as a Pan-European masterpiece of the 21st century.

Montagu Award

Rob Halloway of Mercedes-Benz, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, Eric Dymock

I could not have put it better myself. Clive Jacobs’s introduction to the award at the Guild of Motoring Writers’ dinner in the Royal Automobile Club, Pall Mall, was gracious.

“There was a very large entry for this year’s Mercedes-Benz Award for the Montagu of Beaulieu Trophy. A tough task for the judges then in deciding who in 2009 made the greatest contribution to recording, in the English language, the history of motoring.

But in the end they reached an accord and the trophy will be jointly presented by Lord Montagu and Rob Halloway, Public Relations Manager of Mercedes-Benz Cars.

The winning citation says – "this book is beautifully written, well laid-out and provides a very thorough history of an important British marque that is equally attractive to both enthusiasts and passing browsers. With its company chronology and history of production models and prototypes it is also a comprehensive reference work."

That book is…”The Complete Bentley”… and the author and publisher is Eric Dymock.”
There were lots of people to thank. Clive’s reference to the book’s layout was a tribute to Andrew Barron’s design. It was good that Martin Broomer of Bentley Motors was on hand; he was encouraging throughout the book’s production. The reviewers have been generous, particularly Stuart Bladon in the Jewish Chronicle: “A brilliant production, The Complete Bentley deserves to be recognised as one of the great works of motoring history and merits a place on any keen motorist’s bookshelf, eminently worth its price of £55.”

Malcolm Tucker wrote kindly, in the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts’ Bulletin: “Buying a book by Eric Dymock is a bit like eating a meal prepared by Gordon Ramsay, watching a film starring John Travolta or visiting The Dorchester Hotel in London; you expect something special. This does give us the whole panoply of Bentley lore.”

There were more to thank, including Richard Charlesworth, Julia Marozzi, Denis Miller-Williams and other members of the communications staff at Rolls-Royce and Bentley, Crewe. Thanks were also due to Philip Hall of the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation, who was especially helpful in providing access to the photographic archives of the Foundation and the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts’ Club. Alan Bodfish administrator of the WO Bentley Memorial Foundation and the Bentley Drivers’ Club provided many photographs. Motoring art collector Tony Clark of Burrington, Cherry Garden Lane, Wye, Ashford, Kent gave permission to use artwork items loaned from his extensive collection. More photographs came from Frank Dale and Stepsons and LAT. Michael Turner allowed us to reproduce his 1984 painting of a Bentley at Mulsanne. It was thanks to Warren Allport, formerly of Autocar and editor of Queste, who read the manuscript and made valuable amendments and corrections that The Complete Bentley is notably accurate in the detail of the specifications and descriptions. Notable Bentley book writers whose work we consulted include Malcolm Bobbitt, Jonathan Wood, Graham Robson and Richard Feast.

As with all Dove Publishing books, my thanks also went to print consultant David Bann, publishing director Mike Roberts and most of all Dove Publishing’s finance director Ruth Dymock.

At 83 His Lordship is taking time to get over an injury to his head, suffered when he fell out of a bunk on a rolling ship, sustaining an injury requiring 13 stitches. He couldn’t quite make the podium for the presentation. We are fortunate that Mercedes-Benz is so mindful of its heritage role that it can sponsor an award like this, which inevitably can feature rival makes of car.

This was our second Montagu Award. In 1997 the Guild presented it for Saab, Half a Century of Achievement.



Guild Award winners including, from sixth left Ray Hutton (Bentley International Award), Tony Dron (Rootes Gold Cup), Rhian Angharad Jones (Sir William Lyons and Phil Llewellin Awards), Ray Massey, Daily Mail (Journalist of the Year) and Eric Dymock.