Indholdsfortegnelse for July - August 2022 i Rolls-Royce & Bentley Driver

Here’s to a fine, enjoyable summer after two years of thwarted activity. This issue comes out around the Platinum Jubilee weekend, and we couldn’t allow such an important moment to pass without a close look at the relationship between Rolls-Royce and the Royal Family, starting on page 26. Our cover star is a glorious Bentley S3 Continental Convertible, surely the perfect car for a long summer jaunt. This one has recently emerged from a sensitive but thorough restoration and is about as good as they get; join us behind the wheel on page 12. Throughout the rest of the magazine, we’re offering as much variety as we can pack in, including a Wraith basking in the Australian sun, a blast in the under-rated BMW-engined Bentley Arnage and a day out…

One of the nicest items in the Convertible’s history file is a small brochure for the S3 Continental models. All S3s were a marginal evolution from the S2, which in turn changed significantly from the S1 only in the engine department, with the arrival of V8 power for the S2. An S3 brought you a lower bonnet line, slightly better legroom and different front seats in the standard saloon, with improved power steering, but the change from two headlamps to four was more obvious. And it was carried over, of course, to the Continental models. The brochure depicts four of them – the Convertible Coupé, as featured in this article, the very similar Two Door Sports Saloon, the Four Door Flying Spur by HJ Mulliner and the Four Door Saloon…

Send an email to rrb.ed@kelsey.co.uk or write to: The Editor, Rolls-Royce & Bentley Driver, Kelsey Publishing Ltd, The Granary, Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding, Kent, ME18 6AL EXPERIENCE ON LPG? I use my 1997 Bentley Brooklands quite regularly, almost as a daily driver, though I have a smaller modern car for city driving. With the horrifying recent rise in fuel prices I’ve got to the point where driving 100 miles costs at least £50, as I use only Super Unleaded because I believe it suits the car’s engine and because of the lower ethanol content. So I’ve cut back on use of the Bentley, which saddens me. I look after the car but I bought it to use it because I love driving it, but filling the tank now costs…

For Bentley enthusiasts, the SZ series of cars was where it all started to get good again. And then, it went beyond just merely good, and became simply superb. When Rolls-Royce took over Bentley in 1931, they were two very different marques. Rolls-Royce specialised in luxury leviathans for the very rich while Bentley was the builder of the ‘the fastest lorries the world’ as Ettore Bugatti put it. Blunt and brutal as Bentleys may have been – for they did lack the finesse of the cars from the company that swallowed W.O.’s old firm up – they had won Le Mans in 1924, 1927, 1928, 1929 and 1930. That gave them the sort of rakish, sporting appeal that Rolls-Royce could never muster. However, when the first Rolls-Royce-engineered Bentley appeared in…

Most of us with a fondness for classic cars, and especially for Rolls-Royce, will know a little bit about the Camargue. Challenging styling, of course, and we’ll probably remember that Pininfarina was responsible. More or less like a Shadow underneath, isn’t it? And that other pub quiz fact - the most expensive production car in the world, at least for a while. A bit of a flop in its day. But then what? You rarely see them, either on the road or on the market, and of those that do appear for sale, many seem to come from the USA. But values have been going up a bit, at last. That’s probably where our general knowledge runs out. For most petrolheads the reaction to the Camargue varies from ‘Dear me,…

As this latest issue of Rolls-Royce & Bentley Driver hits the shelves, the Bentley Drivers Club is gearing up for its annual showpiece event of the year: the Summer Concours & Party. And this year’s event – which offers fun for all the family – is particularly eagerly anticipated, with the last two planned annual Concours, in 2020 and 2021, having both been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. It will also be bigger and better than ever – a ‘three-day weekend’ spectacular, from Friday to Sunday, held at picturesque Cubberley House, at Ross-on-Wye, Hereford (17-19 June), in the presence of HRH Prince Michael of Kent. The idyllic 100-acre country estate is the home of 2019 BDC Concours Best in Show winner Dean Kronsbein. To ensure the 2022 event will…

During our conversation with Nikolai, he mentions another bold design that’s fascinated him - the Aston-Martin Lagonda. This car, arguably an even bolder shape than the Camargue and a bigger departure from its maker’s normal output, was styled by William Towns. It appeared a few months before the Camargue’s debut, launching at the Motor Show in 1974. ‘I think the British car industry made two big steps here, both ahead of their time, ’ says Nikolai. ‘Aston were known for fast two-door GT cars but made a saloon, and Rolls-Royce were known for safe, soft, comfy cars but made this daring coupé. It was so brave.’ And yet, we think of the mid- 1970s as an all-time low for our car industry. Yes, labour relations and management were dreadful, so…

From a young age I wanted a Rolls-Royce. Growing up in Austria under the noisy Hitler dictatorship, it came as a relief when in 1945 the British occupied our region. We were shown a number of James Mason films. The inquisitive mind of a 14-year old soon found a connection with Rolls-Royce, as the quality of James Mason’s voice led me to the discovery of the British class system. Speech is a clear indicator of social standing. From then on, the Rolls also became significant. This car marked a social fixture in a system whose days are now numbered, yet this system worked reasonably well for many years. It opened the way for the young and willing to reach a higher ‘station’ through keen work. So I took courses in…

I wasn’t planning to buy a Rolls-Royce, much less a project car, but sometimes these things just happen. I was visiting classic and vintage car specialist Hightone Restorations in Oxfordshire last October. There, in the car park, was a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow looking a bit sorry for itself. It was dark brown, with a cloudy, matt-finish bloom on the paint that reminded me of milk chocolate that’s been in a cupboard for a year. All bar one shiny door. I asked Hightone’s boss, Gregg Alvarez, what it was in for. He told me an intriguing story. The car came to them from the Duke of Marlborough. It had belonged to the previous Duke, who died in 2014, but it had been off the road for much longer than that. Hightone…

It’s 70 years since Britain gained a new Queen, with the accession of Elizabeth II to the throne in 1952. As the monarch who has presided over the UK’s modern era, cars as a means of regal transport have played a far greater role in her reign than with any of her predecessors. And the marques most associated with Elizabeth and others in her family are Rolls-Royce and, more recently, Bentley – something that had undoubtedly done the image of the two companies as paradigms of British prestige, luxury and craftsmanship absolutely no harm whatsoever. But how did the long-standing association begin? Originally, Royal patronage was reserved for some of their rivals instead. Although the automobile was born during the late-Victorian era, there is no record of Queen Victoria ever…

The BMW M62 engine is an all-aluminium 90-degree V8 engine with four valves per cylinder, actuated by twin overhead camshafts on each bank. It arrived in 1995 as a direct successor to the similar M60 engine that Rolls-Royce and Bentley engineers would have been able to try in the 1992-onwards 5-series and 7-series models when they were deciding on a powerplant. While it showed promise, Rolls-Royce embarked on some extensive further development with help from another company owned by the same parent, Vickers PLC, and that was Cosworth. They embarked on the fitment of two small turbochargers, knowing that two smaller blowers have less inertia than one large one, and so should spin up faster, reducing throttle lag. Their housings were cast into the exhaust manifolds to raise efficiency still…

If I was a first-time visitor, what would I need to know? ‘Well, the show runs over three days from Friday 1st July to Sunday 3rd July, though the Friday is just a half day, representing a gentle start to the weekend. The car park is a central feature of the show, with visitors parking in order of arrival, so just walking amongst the hundreds of members’ cars is a real must. The other main part of the show is the trade area, where many specialists and associated businesses have stands that will be of great interest to Rolls-Royce and Bentley owners.’ Do you have any special events planned for certain days? ‘Yes, the Saturday will feature the centenary celebrations for the Rolls-Royce 20hp model, so we’ll have a parade…

You’re never far from a petrol station in the Turbo R, mentally at least. Its appetite for super unleaded was daunting, but I had no real idea what MPG figure I would see. Ten, fifteen, twenty? I might never fin out unless I could get some fuel into the tank in the first place. Pressing the fuel-filler cap’s release button makes a promising ‘clonk’ from the rear nearside of the car, but when I go round to unscrew the cap, the flap’s still shut. Try again - same result. So I jam the squashy leather fob from the keyring in the edge of the flap and then hit the button. Success! The flap flies open and the key fob falls to the deck. On the M25, there are lots of…

TINA TURNER The Rolls is on the back cover of Tina’s 1973 album ‘Nutbush City Limits’ and was suggested by Danish reader Allan Wright. The front shows Tina angrily kicking a steaming and presumably conked- out Chevrolet pick-up truck, while the back shows her in furs, resting on a rather beautiful pale metallic blue Silver Shadow I…such is the progress that talent, luck and hard work eventually brings. The number plate on the Shadow reads ‘BOLIC”, and the car was probably registered to Ike Turner’s Bolic Studios, where the album was recorded, but we’re guessing. Does anyone know? The car was shot by Fred Valentine and the cover put together with Dave Willardson’s illustrations by Lloyd Ziff. WILLIE NELSON By 1972 Willie Nelson was on to his 14th and final…