Tag Archives: Bentley

Silver Jubilee – Middle Barton Garage

The self styled “Italian Shrine” Middle Barton Garage celebrated its Silver Jubilee last weekend and I joined fellow members of the Bristol Pegasus Motor Club at Delamare services on the M4 at 8:30 am last Saturday to join in the fun.

Arthur in his 2006 Mustang GT led a couple of MX5’s a Westfield and yours truly in his humble Golf Mk IV Estate along some beautiful country roads as we took an indirect route with some challenging curves towards the newly relocated Middle Barton Garage which now lies just outside Somerton in Oxfordshire.

We arrived early to find an eclectic assortment of vehicles accumulating including this 1924 Bentley fitted with a normally aspirated 4398 cc / 268 cui six cylinder motor. If I ever get to drive a vintage car of any sort this would be one I’d choose, it looked all set to go like a steam train with little in the way of refinement or creature comfort.

Among the Middle Barton Garage friends and customer cars to turn up was this FIAT 124 Spider, one of at least two I saw on the day, a Barchetta, 128 3P and 500. Being polished in the background is a turbocharged racing Abarth 500.

The Abarth Osella PA2 was built for the 1974 European 2 litre / 122 cui sports car championship, there does not seem to be much agreement on exactly how many PA2’s were built a chassis #013 was offered by Bonhams 5 years ago. The Osella PA2s running with four cylinder engines from Abarth, BMW or Ford were outclassed by the works V6 powered Alpine Renaults in 1974 the final year of the championship. This car chassis #011 is painted in the colours used by Georgian Prince in Spanish exile Jorge de Baragation who drove chassis #001 to a victory at Jarama in 1974.

Alongside the production of their Talisman sports cars Tornado Cars of Rickmansworth, not to be confused with Tornado Sports Cars of Kidderminster, offered a FIAT 600 D conversion to a more powerful spec. David Render bought the one of seen here and his friend Colin Chapman suggested and organised fitting an even more powerful Lotus Twin Cam motor to this car, with which David won more than 50 trophies in sprint and hill climb events.

The 1950 GMC 100 Pickup above is being finished off by one of Middle Barton Garages neighbours.

As I left the Silver Jubilee celebration the Ferrari California Convertible and Maserati Bora 4th from right pulled up to join in the fun.

My thanks to Tony Castle-Miller of Middle Barton Garage and Nick of the Bristol Pegasus Motor Club for organising the event.

Thanks for joining me on this “Silver Jubilee” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres”, I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be taking a close look at a car driven by Queen Elizabeth II during her coronation year. Don’t forget to come back now !

Comfortable presence or large and in charge – Bentley Azure

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This was the first time I saw and indeed heard of a Bentley Azure, though all I heard when I first became acquainted with this one was a faint whisper of a seemingly far off air conditioning unit, I was surprised when I turned around and found this gargantuan vehicle pulling up right next to me.

Since 1998 Volkswagen have been the owners of the Bentley marque having purchased it from Vickers and in the process separated Bentley from, former owner since 1931, Rolls Royce which was sold to the Bavarian Motor Works.

This second generation (2006 – 2009) Azure is powered by a 450 hp 6,750 cc / 411 cui, twin turbo V8, with origins that can be traced to the V8’s used in the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud II, Phantom V and Bentley S2 of 1959. The power is transmitted to the rear wheels with the aid of a 6 speed automatic gearbox made for this model only.

Handling of this 2,801 kg / 6,175 lb vehicle is said to be free of pitch and roll.

The engine is capable of propelling the Azure up to 60 mph from rest in just 5.6 seconds, and on to 168 mph. Unsurprisingly the Azures fuel consumption is amongst the worst on record at between 9 – 15 miles per US gallon, if you need to ask these figures I guess you do not own the requisite oil field or two to keep the Bentley Azure in motion anyway.

This vehicle is longer wider and obviously taller than an Audi R10 TDI Le Mans race car in fact it is larger than several mini buses with an overall length of 5.342 m / 210 inches, a width of 2.057 m / 81 inches, and wheelbase of 3.061 m / 120 inches. More than comfortable for four adults and their luggage to waft down to the South of France for a weekend on the beach.

Hope you have enjoyed today’s XXXL edition of Gettin’ a lil psycho on tyres and that you’ll join me for a look at a slightly more modest black model built in the foot hills of the Zhiguli Height mountains in Toliatti tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Real Fast Lorry – Bentley 3/4.5 litre Fixed Head Coupe 1924

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For a carceaologist like myself vintage Bentley’s, referred to by Ettore Bugatti as ‘the fastest lorries in the World’ are a bit of a nightmare because the original bodywork of many of them has long since rotted away, many of those bodies have been replaced with replica Van den Plas Le Mans bodies. A few of Bentley’s have chassis with not much in the way of original fabric either.

One disputed Bentley chassis recently turned up in the law courts which had chassis members from three different models front, middle and rear ! Unless you have an exceptionally strong belief in the concept of ‘entity’ you may struggle to accept that some vintage Bentley’s are vintage and or indeed Bentley’s at all.

Gareth Graham is seen here driving a vehicle owned by BJA Collings, not to be confused with the BBC comedy ‘Stig’ character Ben Collings, during the VSCC meeting at Loton Park in September.

The Fixed Head Coupe featured today has a 1924 chassis but with a 110 hp 4,398 cc / 268 cui 4 cylinder engine that was not available with these 3 litre chassis until 1927. If the vehicle is on its original licence plates it was first registered in Essex.

Hope you have enjoyed today’s vintage edition of ‘Getting a lil’ psycho on tyres’, and that you will join me tomorrow for a look at a gargantuan contemporary Bentley. Don’t forget to came back now !

The Spirit that never breaks down – Rolls Royce Silver Spirit.

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The radiator grill design and tragic Spirit of Ecstasy mascot makes Rolls Royce one of the few instantly recognisable brands no matter what age or model. The mascot on this model instantly retracts if dislodged allegedly preventing injury to pedestrians and making the item much harder to collect by even the most determined fans of the Beasty Boys.

The Silver Spirit was a development of the Silver Shadow with a new body and suspension that brought RR into the 1980’s.

Sufficiently powered by a 6750cc / 411 cui V8 the Silver Spirit and slightly longer Silver Spur no longer featured the Citroen licensed self levelling suspension of the Silver Shadow but one using a Girling automatic hydraulic ride height control system riding on gas charged shock absorbers.

The Registration of this vehicle suggests that this might be a 1984 model but the alloy wheels to my not so well trained eye look to be of a more recent vintage. The Silver Spirit/Spur series is the twin of the Bentley Mulsanne / Eight series.

The Silver Spirit is the only Rolls Royce model that has ever come in to my hands, albeit briefly in my capacity as quality controller at a Volvo Garage, it certainly is an impressive machine to be seen driven around in, the ride quality is superb but the feel of the car with its spindly steering wheel and column shift left me feeling I was driving a very well appointed 1972 Volvo 144.

It should always be remembered that a Rolls Royce never ‘breaks down’, but if not looked after properly it might ‘fail to proceed’.

Erratum: in response to a question about the Citroen SM suspension on October 20th I stated that ‘Rolls Royce / Bentley took out licenses to use similar (Citroen hydropneumatic self levelling) systems on the Silver Shadow/T, Silver Spur/Mulsanne’ in fact as I have written above the Silver Spirit/Spur have a Girling self levelling systems. Apologies for any confusion that arose.

Hope you have enjoyed your stay, don’t forget to come back now !

The Ultimate Laxative – Napier Bentley

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This year marked the first time I have witnessed a hill climb event in fact I liked it so much the first time I went to two the first at Prescott and the second at Loton Park. Both were VSCC run meetings and highly entertaining despite the fact that no over taking is guaranteed.

The reason I enjoy these events is because of the breath taking variety of vehicles many by manufacturers long since disappeared and probably most models are completely unknown to me. Falling into the category vehicles unknown to me is this beautiful Napier Bentley driven by Christopher Williams which races in the Pre 1941 Racing Cars over 3000cc 183 cui class.

The car easily qualifies for the big engined class as it is powered by a Napier Lion Marine engine rescued from a WW2 Motor Torpedo boat. The 550hp engine is a 24,000 cc / 1464.5 cui, Arrow 12 with 3 banks of 4 cylinders that was originally developed in 1917 for aircraft applications being used in over 160 different aircraft types, the engine was also used to power Sir Malcom Cambell to over 250 mph in 1932, and John Cobb to 394 mph in 1947.

This car was originally built by David Llewellyn in 1968 with a Sunbeam chassis but after an accident the Sunbeam chassis was replaced by a 1929 chassis from an 8 litre Bentley. Chris Williams , see the man in the bowler hat, has been looking after it since 1999.

It would appear a sense of humour is essential to drive such a fearsome beast…

….easily capable of spinning its wheels in any gear.

Just noticed that Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres has somehow made it through it’s first month and has just had it’s 1,000 th page view ! Thanks to everyone who has popped by and especially all those who have contributed to making this so much fun, looking forward to tomorrow’s instalment of Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres already, don’t forget to come back now !

Everything stops for the – Bentley T

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Today I am looking at this Bentley T twin to the most successfull Rolls Royce in history the Silver Shadow.

The only discernible difference between the Shadow and the T was the grill which was, simpler to manufacturer, lighter, smoother and largely responsible for the Bentley at £ 5375 being £50 cheaper than the Shadow when introduced in 1965.

The T was the first Bentley to feature a monocoque construction. The car was ‘adequately’ powered by a 6230 cc / 380 cui Rolls Royce V8, power output was never mentioned in connection with Rolls or Bentley at this time, presumably because ‘adequate’ in connection with a vehicle weighing 2 tons avoided any embarrassing direct power to weight ratio comparisons.

Where the T really scored over the Shadow other than marginally more discrete badging was exclusivity, between 1965 and 1977 16,717 Series 1 Shadows were built against just 1,703 Series 1 T’s

Thanks for joining me, don’t forget to come back now !

Gettin' A Li'l Psycho On Tyres

Art Tidesco blogs on all things motoring