Get Bent

WE BLOW THE CANDLES OUT ON A CENTURY OF BALL-TEARING BENTLEYS IN THE ONLY WAY WE KNOW HOW – BY DRIVING SOME SERIOUSLY SPECIAL CARS

- Andrew Frankel

THIS IS QUITE SOMETHING. It’s the first time that cars from all three eras of Bentley’s racing history have been driven on the same bit of track, at the same time, and they’ve come together at Silverstone to celebrate Bentley’s centenary.

Each has their claim to fame. The GT3 is Bentley’s latest competition car, a state-of-the-art racer in the most competitive category of sports car racing. The old Blower is not merely Sir Henry Birkin’s own car, and the one in which he led Le Mans in 1930, but the one that remains the most original of all racing vintage Bentleys. And the one that sits in the middle chronologically is the actual 2003 Le Mans winner.

Bentley hasn’t always been a racing brand – for 71 of those 100 years Bentley didn’t race at all – but racing was there from the start. In fact, Bentley raced long before it got around to delivering a car to a paying customer in September 1921, and over the following decade it put Britain on the racing map. True, Bugatti and Alfa Romeo dominated grand prix racing, but Bentley’s five wins at Le Mans between 1924 and 1930 announced Britain’s presence on the global racing stage, a position from where the country has rarely looked back.

Rolls-Royce denied Bentley the opportunity to race after it hoovered up the bankrupt company in 1931. Had it been bought by Napier, as originally intended, Bentley might not have had to wait a lifetime before returning to the track. But when it did under Volkswagen ownership in 2001, the results were swift, culminating in that 2003 Le Mans win, breaking the records for both the greatest distance covered in the 24 hours and the shortest time spent in the pits. Fast and reliable: WO would have been buzzing with pride.