Innehållsförteckning för January - February 2022 från Rolls-Royce & Bentley Driver

It is an anomaly of magazine publishing that although this issue of Rolls-Royce & Bentley Driver carries a Jan/Feb 2022 cover date, it actually goes on sale in early December... which makes it an ideal time to look back on what’s been a mixed year for most of us. Here in the UK, we started 2021 enduring the latest pandemic-related lockdown, after which we saw a gradual reopening of society and a return to some kind of normality. Everyone in the world of classic vehicles was inevitably affected, with yet more shows and rallies being cancelled early on in the season – something we’d already had to get used to in 2020. By mid-summer, however, things began to change and we were able to enjoy a busy but short season…

Determined to make a name for himself at the top of Britain’s post-war car manufacturing movement, Walter Owen Bentley had one main ambition in 1919: “To build a good car, a fast car”. And into the melting pot to create the original 3 Litre went many valuable ingredients, including W.O.’s premium apprenticeship in locomotive engineering, his racetrack exploits on two and four wheels, and a thorough appreciation of the pre-1914 high-efficiency continental Grand Prix engine. Then there was his involvement in the French DFP (Doriot, Flandrin et Parent) 12/15 2 Litre car, both through the London sales agency he’d conducted with his brother ‘H.M.’ (Horace Milner Bentley) and at Brooklands, where W.O.’s pioneering high-compression aluminium pistons turned the DFP into a Brooklands record-breaker. In fact, those pistons were to be…

Bentley had already come up with some pretty exceptional Arnage limited editions, but it pulled out all the stops for the Arnage Final Series of 2009. This swansong model featured many options that had previously only been available by special order. As with the Blue Train, the Arnage T’s more powerful engine was used – albeit this time with 500bhp instead of 450bhp – in combination with the R’s softer, more comfortable suspension. That was probably just as well given that hard-riding 20-inch polished-alloy five-spoke wheels were fitted. The headlamp and rear light bezels were body-coloured, the radiator and bumper grilles were dark mesh, there were Le Mans-style wing vents and a billet aluminium ‘jewel’ fuel filler cap, and naturally a proper Flying B mascot proudly decorated the radiator surround……

As we head towards 2022 and hopefully a steady return to normality, we are very much looking forward to resuming our fantastic program of Technical Seminars. Held at our headquarters in Paulerspury, near Towcester, these popular weekend courses provide what is probably one of the greatest benefits of club membership. Our workshop has, amongst other teaching aids a vehicle lift allowing members and instructors to inspect their cars, a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III chassis (displayed at the 1965 Earl’s Court Motor Show) and our infamous cutaway Silver Shadow II. There’s also a 1929 Rolls-Royce 20hp with limousine coachwork by Thrupp & Maberley, which has been sectioned so that you can see the construction of the ash frame, the roofing fabric and window lift mechanism; the removal of some of the…

I set out with a straightforward shopping list in April 2013 when I decided to stop dreaming and actually buy an SZ-generation car. It had to be a Rolls-Royce and it had to have picnic tables. My wife added just one caveat: “You can choose any car you like… as long as it’s black.” And that’s how I came to be driving home in a dark blue Bentley with no picnic tables. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight. A cold snap meant that my first glimpse of the car was as an anonymous lump under several inches of snow on the dealer’s forecourt. The Bentley had to be dug out before anything could be seen and all attempts to start the engine were thwarted by a flat battery. However,…

HYBRID CHALLENGE Using only energy from waste straw and the power of the planet, an engineering prototype Flying Spur Hybrid has completed a dramatic test as part of the car’s sign-off and Bentley’s development of renewable fuels. The Flying Spur Hybrid covered the 455 miles required to drive across Iceland in a single stint and entirely on renewable power, through a combination of 100% second-generation biofuel and geothermally-sourced electricity available from the Icelandic power grid. Bentley claims the journey is validation of both the grand touring range of its latest hybrid model as well as its research into biofuels that can be used without engine modification. The fuel used conforms to the same EN228 standard as regular petrol but is created entirely from waste biomass (such as straw) at no…

In common with we humans, the lives of our cars can change in an instant – and that was certainly the fate of the Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith you see here. A notably original example featuring Park Ward’s elegant coachwork on the standard 107-inch wheelbase chassis, it has remained in the same family ownership for most of its career, leading an untroubled existence until being assaulted by a brick wall a couple of years ago. We don’t know how the wall fared, but the Silver Wraith was suddenly a sorry sight. The heavy impact badly damaged the front nearside corner and inflicted discrete but meaningful damage on the suspension, steering, brakes and even the electrical system. More obvious were the injuries to the radiator and, most evidently of all, the front…

You would probably expect the largest private collection of classic Rolls-Royce automobiles in Canada to be in a major metropolitan area, right? Maybe Montreal, one of the oldest cities in the nation. Or Toronto, a vibrant cultural metropolis. Or Vancouver on the west coast, which has the ideal climate for all things self-propelled. But the truth is that the biggest collection of this fine automobile marque can be found in a rather less obvious location. The eighteen Rolls-Royces in question have been gathered over the years by Howard Lengert, a farmer. His collection also includes a trio of Bentleys. Thirteen of his classic cars are currently displayed at the Leduc West Antique Society Heritage Museum in western Canada, not far from Edmonton International Airport, while the balance of the collection…

“In adult life, Gavin’s ambition to one day have a Rolls-Royce of his own remained, but for many years it wasn’t a practical proposition” When we hear someone talk about how they developed a love of cars at a very young age, it often brings back memories of our own childhood. Car-spotting as a youngster is something most of us can relate to, an activity that can often influence our choices in later life. And for Gavin Hughes, growing up near London in the 1980s meant one thing: there was rarely a shortage of Rolls-Royces for him to admire, with England’s capital being the place you were most likely to see a secondhand Silver Shadow, a classic Silver Cloud or a brand new Silver Spirit at that time. “I had…

You might think it takes a very special machine to tempt a self-confessed enthusiast of Italian sporting cars out of his charismatic Maserati and into a Crewe-built coupé. And indeed, the Supersports version of the first-generation Continental GT is special, aided by its headline-grabbing 621bhp output and a top speed just a fraction of a second off 205mph. For Hertfordshire-based Mark Finnegan, however, his choice of modern classic just over two years ago had as much to do with its number of cylinders as anything else: “I want to make sure I’ve owned cars with just about every cylinder combination there is,” explains Mark, “and up until 2019 I’d not owned anything with twelve cylinders. I briefly considered a Jaguar XJ-S V12 before suddenly hitting on the idea of a…

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 HYTHE ROAD MEMORIES First, thank you for an excellent magazine; I have every issue starting from the first. Having never owned a Rolls-Royce or Bentley myself, a Jaguar is the closest I have come in terms of pedigree, although I imagine that most people would consider a Jaguar to be closer to a Ford Escort than to a Rolls-Royce! I have always loved Rolls-Royce, although as a youngster the sight of an Alvis or a Bristol was (almost just as much of) a reason to be excited. My favourite models are the Silver Cloud I and II, plus the Silver Shadow; I’ve never…

As much as this is a history of the birth and evolution of the last Bentley to be designed during the 20th century, it’s also (inevitably) a look at the very public battle between Volkswagen and BMW for ownership of the Bentley and Rolls-Royce names. The car was launched in the middle of the takeover tussle between the two German giants. And when BMW snatched the rights to Rolls-Royce from under VW’s nose – and at a fraction of the price that VW had paid for Bentley – it would have quite radical repercussions for the new Arnage. However, we’re getting ahead of ourselves, for the origins of the Arnage date back to the days when Vickers was in charge of both marques. The British aviation, defence, marine and engineering…

Tony Bennett. John Lennon. Elvis Presley. Frank Sinatra. These are just some of the names to whom Rolls-Royce dealers issued invoices for Silver Clouds. By the end of production in 1965, the Silver Cloud III’s £5500 list price would have bought you a seven-bedroom house, or ten Minis with almost change for an eleventh. By no standards was this a cheap car, and yet its clientele were changing. In a gradually easing social environment, the Silver Cloud had begun to appeal to the self-made owner-driver. And its replacement, the Silver Shadow, was deliberately tailored towards this market, with its relatively low-slung styling and monocoque construction being the height of modernity by Rolls-Royce standards. The Silver Cloud would therefore be the company’s final separate-chassis saloon, and thus the last to offer…

2001 BENTLEY ARNAGE OWNER: JOHN POLLOCK, COATBRIDGE My interest in Rolls-Royce and Bentley began in late 1967, when I’d not long started my auto-electrician apprenticeship at a local garage, before moving to a Vauxhall dealership within a year. During my walk to work I would pass Hunter’s Transport, where in the window was a 1965 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III. I would look at it every working day, appreciating that this was a car to covet. As an apprentice though, any idea of owning such a machine seemed a million miles away… a head-in-the-clouds fantasy. In later years, my business partner and I worked hard as auto-electricians, running a business in Coatbridge (a small town ten miles from Glasgow) for over forty years, during which time we worked on a few…