New Blowers

[John Murch]

I see Bentley Motors are to produce a run of ‘continuation ‘ Birkin Blower cars. So people don’t have to take risks with their priceless originals......

[Charles R Simmers]

Yes, they can risk their priceless new ones.

[John Murch]

Is it cheaper to repair a priceless new one than a priceless original? (Which is probably far from original already).

[John Robins]

https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2019/09/09/bentley-brings-back-the-1929-blower-with-12-replicas-of-the-iconic-race-car/

[Nicholas Simons]

What's the difference between an original 4 1/2 supercharged and a 4 1/2 Birkin? I understand they made 50 of the former and 5 of the latter. Of course, there are now many more around than were ever built.

[Christopher Carnley]

All of the supercharged cars were built at the premises of the impoverished "Tim" Birkin in Welwyn in a programme funded by the Hon Dorothy Paget. Bentley Motors had nothing to do with the scheme.
The was/is a sole single seater with stream lined body called the Birkin Special.
In the 1930 Ulster Ards T.T 3 blowers were entered by Hon Dorothy, along with an unblown 4 1/2 litre car by E R Hall.

Birkin crashed out in the rain at 22 laps, Benjafield was flagged off at 27 laps. "Bertie" Kensington-Moir came 11th overall but 1st in class C, and the guy from Kirkburton, Eddie Hall came 12th in the unblown car, 2nd in the class C.

As new chassis frames have been been around for some time, and all the W O specialists have enough new parts to build all the mechanicals, and Bob Petersen has been buildin the bi-lobe blowers for a while, I can, see what all the fuss is about.
Racing Green Cars are a lot less costly and a lot easier to drive.

[Nicholas Simons]

Thanks, Chris, but if all 55 supercharged 4 1/2s were modified at Welwyn what is the difference, if any, between the 50 and the 5 and why are they so characterised in the WO records?

[Christopher Carnley]

NIcholas,
My mistake,
The factory were persuaded to make 50 Blower cars at Birkins instigation to have the homologation for racing.

He prepared 5 additional cars at Welwyn for racing, including one built up from spares.
A bit like the "new" ones to come.

[Iain Warner]

Do we know if these 'new' cars will be built to be registered to be used on the roads in this country?

[Jock Mackinnon]

Do you think they will be offering the new owners the current full Colour range which is available to modern Bentleys, or will these "new" cars all be boring BRG......

[Stephen Blakey]

I'm surprised no one has commented that WO must be turning in his grave.

He hated these cars with a passion and, rightly or wrongly, held their manufacture partly responsible for the demise of his company. It is a matter of record that they were extremely slow sellers.

There is a piece on this project in Classic Car Weekly 18.9.19 which looks like a straight cut 'n paste from a VAG press release. Apparently the cars will be built using "many of the 1920's moulds and jigs" (moulds?). Clare Hay has written about R-R's slash and burn policy with the assets of BM post 1931, so it is interesting to hear that so much has survived and I'm sure we all look forward to hearing about what and how. Perhaps they could send us some pictures to go in the Review?

In another version of the story which I can't find, the company will dismantle UU5872 and take 3D scans which will be used to 3D model the car. It seems likely that the cars will be built using 2019 manufacturing methods e.g 3D printed casting patterns and, given the tiny batch size, 3D CNC machining from billet, unless they can find somebody who can still remember how it was done in the old days. This begs the question, what have they actually created?

£1.5M a pop, which seems cheap given the amount of work involved. However, given that old car values are falling, it would be far cheaper to supercharge a heavy crank 4½ and you would end up with something with a bit of authenticity that could be used on the road.

There are no plans to make the recreations road legal (insert your own joke about how on earth they could get a Euro 6 emission certificate).

Our Chairman was asked to comment, and will undoubtedly have delivered a couple of pithy, Ray Wiltshire-esque sentences along the lines of, "This is an insult to WO! Mine's a pint", however by the time the VAG PR boys and girls had finished editing, that had been modified somewhat to become;
"This is an absolutely thrilling project, which clearly demonstrates the importance of heritage to Bentley Motors in support of its current range of models".

There's to be a one-make race series.

[Christopher Carnley]

It is all advertising hype/puff.
Bentley Motors never had any moulds, every part (4 L excepted), was cast, forged, machined drilled tapped and hardened by specialist suppliers for assembly by BM, like kit cars.

Both Ken Lea and Ken Brittain were behind the Corniche redivivus, at the SHR Foundation, the body was built in at least 3 different firms and only finished at Crewe.

[Paul Spencer]

I was there when it was announced at Concours. The story there was that they would dismantle their team car and scan every component for re-manufacturer. They would do this blemishes and all unless these affected safety and reliability.

[Stephen Blakey]

I note from Dr Hay's book on the blowers that instead of the usual BM prefix, the blowers were given the project code BS, I and wonder if VAG will maintain that convention?

Re Christopher's above, on the face of it, VAG seem to have airbrushed out the years of work on the Corniche project by Ken Lea and the team of volunteers at Derby. I went on a club visit to that project years ago and the amount of effort they had put in was striking. Perhaps that bit of the press release didn't make it into our advertorial journal?

[Martin Webster]

I was involved in a very minor way with the project at the very beginning with the RRHT at Derby. The amount of work that Ken and all of the other volunteers contributed was immense and I feel that it is very disingenuous of VAG to exclude their part in this important project and frankly without the RRHT volunteers there wouldn’t be a Corniche replica.

[Stephen Blakey]

Re the blowers, I had a lovely chat with BDC member Nigel Stennet-Cox yesterday, sat on a bench next to Prescott hillclimb, like a petrolhead version of Last of the Summer Wine.

Nigel knew Amhurst Villiers in AV's later life and had heard AV's version of events. It is a matter of record that there was no love lost between WO and AV. Anyway, it was interesting to hear some of the other side of the story.

I was recently asked if a heavy crank would fit in an earlier engine and consulted Dr Hay's book on the blowers to be reminded that, in order to accommodate the larger main bearings, the cylinder block studs had to be moved away from the crank centreline. This meant a redesign of the crankcase and the cylinder block at a time when the company was in dire straits. Is it any wonder WO felt the way he did about those cars?

[John Murch]

The article on the url below (I know its a few months old) made interesting reading. How does a Specialist Firm make these cars road legal? Or is that just the export ones?

https://www.magnetomagazine.com/articles/view,first-test-drive-of-the-blower-bentley-continuation_76.htm

[Robert Craven]

Maybe there are some countries where with certain modifications they would be allowed on public roads. But I don't know which countries and I can't see how it could be done in the UK.

[John Robins]

To offer no answer at all to John Murch’s question about road legality, how did the firm that offers that electric “Morris-Commercial” van gain approval for that? Or has the government applied dual standards in the name of greenhouse gas reduction? Perish the thought!