The magic of the Blower Bentley – Thank Frankel it’s Friday

But what of the Blower itself? Why has this car come to be the pin-up of the vintage Bentley era? How has a car which never won a race worthy of the mention and which WO Bentley absolutely detested come to be his most feted and famed of all? Is there something we missed?

WO’s beef with the car was essentially because it offended his engineering principles, but he’d not have been human not to have disliked it a bit simply because it got built against his will. By the time the decision was made he’d not been in control of the company that bore his name for several years. His objection to it, memorably described by him as to ‘pervert the design and corrupt the performance’ of his blameless 4.5-litre (actually 4.4-litres) motor, was based on his love of smooth, refined and, above all, flawlessly reliable powertrains. He saw attaching a two-rotor Amherst Villiers supercharger to the front of the engine as a shortcut from which no good would come. He didn’t dispute that more power was needed, but his answer was the 6.6-litre Speed Six motor and in this regard at least, history turned out to be entirely on his side. It not only won back to back at Le Mans but also England’s equivalent, the Brooklands Double Twelve.

But the ‘Blower’ as it was then known was not a tawdry lash-up job by any stretch of the imagination. It was Tim Birkin’s idea, financed by the unbelievably wealthy Anglo-American Dorothy Paget and run essentially a private race team based in Welwyn. When Birkin persuaded Bentley chairman Woolf Barnato to build the requisite 50 road cars, the project was on. And far from being simply bolted onto the engine, the Blowers came with reinforced blocks, heavier crankshafts and beefed up conrods. The fact they broke so much did show they were still deficient in engineering terms, but it’s fair to point out that Birkin’s no-prisoners driving style probably had quite a lot to do with it too.

The result was a car whose power was boosted from 111PS (81kW) to 177PS (130kW) in road form, which compared well to the 162PS (119kW) offered by the first Speed Sixes. Race cars had as much as 243PS (179kW), enough to propel Birkin down the Mulsanne straight at over 125mph, over 90 years ago. Their massive, instant torque was tough on tyres – Blowers were always throwing treads – and adding another large lump of heavy metal slung just where you didn’t want it ahead of the front axle did no favours for the car’s handling.

So from whence did the magic emerge? I think it was all Birkin: whether it was overtaking the Mercedes of Caracciola at top speed on the grass with a tyre in tatters as he did at Le Mans in 1930, or coming second in the French Grand Prix the same year beating all bar one of the 17 purpose-built Bugattis in the race, or smashing the Brooklands lap record in his famed single-seater, the car and the man became indivisible, one being simply the physical manifestation of the indomitable will of the other.

His favourite car was the actual machine on which all the recreated cars will be based and is today surely the most valuable Bentley in the world: not only is it one of the most famous thanks to its duel at Le Mans with the Mercedes, but also because it is the most original of all the surviving racing Bentleys with a known and impeccable provenance.

And at least of those that I have driven and which are entitled to be used on the public road, it is my favourite car in the whole wide world. Next week I will tell you why.