Blower Bentley Recreation

[bauble]

https://sportscardigest.com/new-bent...-weekly-update

For anyone who has not sen this piece on the continuation Blower Bentley Tim Birkin Team cars, this is a fascinating read.

Baub.

[Derwent]

With the Zero car, prototype, there will be 13 cars.

[E.B]

Originally Posted by Derwent

With the Zero car, prototype, there will be 13 cars.

All. pre-sold. Hate to think what price they sold for. Well out of my league.
Great article though.... thanks Bob for the link.

[Rudernst]

This is to be wellcomed, just because this takes some pressure of the market to cut up even more perfectly good orginal Bentley chassis frames just to make room for the ruddy blower in front.

The destruction wreaked on a near industrial basis by certain players of the Bentley world was sickening to see at the time, driven by silly money of course.
Blower replicas went for much more that the price of getting a tired car, cutting it up, fitting a blower and flog it on. The certain profits fueled this

This was and is driven by Germans (to a large degree at least), mainly with too much money and too little taste and apparantly very little ability to do proper research before parting with their wherewithal
Most of of them have no clue whatsoever that "the Blower" was not a product that W.O. Bentley approved of. Barnato (as de facto owner of the Bentley Motors at the time) more or less forced Bentley to fullfill Padgets order for 50 chassis. That was Birkins project and he got Dorothy Padget to fund it.
Bentley favored the Speed Six over the the blown 4 cylinder car and he was right, the Speed Six won Le Mans and the Blower-Bentley failed.
Again, this is an open fact, but virtually unknown in Germany

Birkin did have some success in his Blower in Grand Prix Racing, in the funny years with open Formulas before the advent of the 750 kgs Formula.

What is really funny is the several VW top brass in the early days after aquiring Bently had wet dreams about vintage Blower Bentleys and threw company money around to get one.
It took an awful lot of time to make them realise that the "humble" 3 litre Speed Model for instance had much more significance for the marque than the dreaded Blower.

I actually dissuaded one or two Germans to shell out for a Blower Replica saving an original chassis or two.

"Blower-Bentleys" and Lagonda M45 Le Mans Team Car Replicas and "Riley Specials" are the bane of the pre war car world. Heatwrenching to see some of the results and what was cut and and destroyed to build yet another of these idiotic cars.

Rant over, but I can get going again anytime over this.

RudE

[apriliadriver]

Rudi, I could not agree more and thank you for summarising it so well. Even worse are the Petersen-type conversions of a Rolls 20 chassis (and worse), a B80 RR military motor and assorted set-dressing into 'wiki-Bentley' creations ('wiki' because they are bound to mislead). One leading historic rally operator accepts them because "they look like the real thing". Scratch our entry....
Nick

[grantp]

I wonder if there will ever be a market for, say, matching number Tesla Model S variants with early chassis numbers?



Only worth big money (whatever that my be by then) if it comes with the original battery?

[john ruston]

Most rally organisers accept these type of replica Bentley’s
Usually with big engines, modified brakes , fancy gearboxes etc ( and they are still crap to drive)
Can’t understand these new fake cars as some really decent people about making really good look a-likes!
Nothing remotely historical about them but look like a 1920 ‘what’s it ‘extension.
Very few real ones left

[Gerard C]

Thank you Rudolf. Nothing to add.