Bentley had dreams of reigniting Le Mans success before big brother VW made plans. This is the car that convinced them victory was possible
Words Ben Barry Photography Jordan Butters
This isn’t the Bentley Speed 8 EXP prototype that won Le Mans in 2003, nor one of nine other LMGTP prototypes that raced and tested in Crewe’s three-year programme from 2001. Look beyond the livery and the keen-eyed might notice the bodywork hints as much, especially around the rear.
But the noise! The noise literally screams the difference as the car disappears down Turweston airfield – a shrill, peaky blare that cuts through the air, the note dropping for only the briefest fraction of a second during gearshifts.
Anyone who worked on the original Bentley programme would know instantly this isn’t the Audi-sourced twin-turbo V8. Some are even here today and can confirm it’s actually a Ford-Cosworth DFR Formula 1 engine – a 3.8-litre flatplane-crank V8 derived from the DFV and built by Nicholson McLaren in period.
Crucially, they also know this is the prototype LMGTP prototype, the car that set the ball rolling before Volkswagen’s board had so much as green-lighted Bentley’s comeback. Lift open the carbonfibre butterfly door and it’s there, stamped on a metal plate attached to the carbon tub: ‘CHASSIS NO. RTN 001.01.’ – the first of 11 Speed 8s produced in total, if one quite different from the rest.
But to most people, including Bentley insiders, this car is a mysterious anomaly fitted with the wrong engine. ‘Even people who worked on the Bentley Le Mans programme from the first year wouldn’t have known this car exists,’ says Howden Haynes, now technical director of Progressive Motorsport, formerly a key cog in nine Le Mans wins, Bentley’s included. ‘The main core of the race team only came later, when this car had already been put to bed.’
This first step on Bentley’s Le Mans comeback had been sitting in the back of a storage facility in Crewe ever since, and today is the first time it’s turned a wheel in 20 years, following a recommissioning process said to have devoured around 2000 hours and which has transformed it from rolling chassis to runner. We have the talents of Progressive Motorsport and the vision, passion and – let’s not be shy about this – deep pockets of Shaun Lynn to thank for that.
Proud father of Cadillac works Hypercar driver Alex Lynn and an accomplished gentleman racer in his own right, Lynn senior owns four of the Speed 8s built in 2
