1923-2023
It’s been thrilling, deadly, innovative and occasionally awol. But it’s never been dull
BENTLEY SPEED SIX
The legend of the Bentley Boys is born
Bentley was the most successful pre-war marque at Le Mans, and its ‘Bentley Boys’ team of drivers the most triumphant and charismatic. They included the man who became financial backer and chairman of Bentley in 1926, Woolf Barnato – with three wins, the most suc-cessful pre-war driver – and my own favourite of the Bentley Boys, Glen Kidston.
He was the wealthiest (even richer than Barnato), the most dare-devil (among a fearless band of brothers) and won Le Mans in 1930, with Barnato. After numerous near misses in aeroplane, motorcycle, speedboat, battleship and submarine accidents, his de Havilland Puss Moth crashed in a dust storm over the Drakensberg mountains on the return leg of a record-breaking flight from the UK to South Africa. He died aged just 32, a year after his Le Mans triumph.
Barnato and Kidston won in a Bentley Speed Six, surely the big-gest, heaviest and highest car ever to win Le Mans. ‘Old Number Three’ (pictured) was a team car that raced in 1930 and was mechani-cally identical to ‘Old Number One’ which won both in ’29 (when ‘Tim’ Birkin was Barnato’s co-driver) and again in 1930.
The Speed Six was the most successful pre-war racing Bentley and company founder WO Bentley’s favourite. More high-performance GT than sports car, it was fast, reliable and tough: Ettore Bugatti called it the world’s fastest truck. Powered by a 6.6-litre straight-six, it was a development of the 1926 6½-litre Bentley: racing versions had a shorter wheelbase and developed 200bhp.
The Speed Six’s first Le Mans win, in ’29, was Bentley’s most domi-nant: Barnato and Birkin held the top spot from start to finish and led home three 4½-litre Bentleys (Kidston and Jack Dunfee were second). The first non-Bentley (an American Stutz), back in fifth, was 21 laps behind the winning Speed Six.
The 1930 victory was much harder fought. Bentley faced the might of Mercedes-Benz, and its factory-entered supercharged SSK driven by Rudolf Caracciola, Germany’s greatest pre-war driver. To respond, Bentley had a new supercharged car of its own: the Blower.
Six Bentleys entered: three Speed Sixes and three Blowers. The Bentley strategy was clear: the Blowers were faster than the Speed Sixes but more fragile. Led by ‘Tim’ Birkin, they would race the SSK early on and break it. It worked. Caracciola was out by 2.30am, the Blowe
