Rolls-Royce’s first Bentley was fast, refined and expensive 90 years ago. But with more than 2400 built, most are fine value today
WORDS SIMON TAYLOR PHOTOGRAPHY JOHN BRADSHAW
It’s the 1930s. You’re someone of considerable substance – earned by the sweat of your brow, or inherited from Daddy – and you want a fast, dashing motor car of quality. Rolls-Royce? Too staid, too ostentatious. Lagonda? A bit flash. Alvis? Sunbeam? Admirable in their way but, well, rather middle-class. Then the new Bentley takes its bow at the 1933 Olympia Motor Show, and at last you’ve found a car that meets all your needs: high performance, elegance and style, with your choice of bespoke coachwork.
Despite costing almost as much as a dozen terraced houses, that Bentley went on to become a remarkable success. More than 2400 examples were sold in the following six years. They were bought by tycoons and politicians, racing drivers and bankers, test pilots and band leaders, actors and aristocrats, until WW2 forced its maker to concentrate on building aircraft engines such as the peerless Merlin.
That maker, of course, was Rolls-Royce. In 1931,WO Bentley’s valiant firm in Cricklewood, with its thunderous sports cars and string of Le Mans victories, had collapsed into the arms of the receiver. Napier, Rolls’ rival in the aero-engine world, had stopped building its fine luxury cars in 1924; but now it could bid for Bentley, retain WO’s engineering genius, and return to the car market with a Napier-Bentley. It would be a serious rival to R-R’s Phantom II.
When rumours of these plans reached the Rolls-Royce directors they were panicked into immediate action. Hiding their identity behind a hastily registered shell company called the British Central Equitable Trust, they topped Napier’s bid of £125,256 by a mere £20,000. So now Rolls had Bentley: what to do with it?
Managing director Arthur Sidgreaves liked the idea of a smaller Rolls, and a prototype had been built, codenamed Peregrine. Rather oddly this had a supercharged 2.4-litre engine, which did not show well in trials. Ernest Hives, then head of the Experimental Department, followed a more sensible route. He took the well-tried 3669cc Royce 20/25 engine and modified it radically, with a high-compression crossflow cylinder head, different camshaft, lighter pistons and twin SU carburettors. This produced a healthy 115bhp (although Rolls-Royce never published power-output figures). It sat in a conservative but quite light chassis with half-elliptic springs all round, a g
