Profound and prolific, a Bentley is a Bentley – and it continues to be one of the most beautifully made marques
A Bentley State Limousine. These cars (two were built, so one could be used while the other was being serviced) had two roles: the first was to act as the official State Limousine for Queen Elizabeth II, and the second was to show the world that Bentley had such breadth that it could design one car that could win Le Mans and another that was fit for a queen. The fact that Bentley supplanted Rolls-Royce in the important, stately role was just a happy side effect.
The Speed 8 earned Bentley its sixth victory at Le Mans, 73 years after its fifth.
Although its winged “B” label has been the property of Germany’s Volkswagen Group for more than a decade, few automotive brands are more British than Bentley, founded by Walter Owen Bentley in 1919. His ambition was not just to build a fast and good car, but the best in class. It’s a promise that the brand’s legacy upholds a century later.
The name Bentley evokes gin and tonics, gentlemen’s clubs, village cricket greens and Harris tweed, while also recalling the five Le Mans wins of the “Bentley Boys” between 1924 and 1930, and the shapeliness of the iconic R-type Continental coupé of the 1950s. Badges apart, few vehicles could be less obviously similar than Bentley’s Speed 6 racer of the 1920s (which, straightforward and inelegant, was dismissed by his chief Le Mans adversary, Ettore Bugatti, as “the world’s fastest truck”) and the almost femininely graceful Continental.
Yet both serve as clear inspirations for the recent Bentley Continental GT coupé and its most outrageous incarnation, the Supersports. The latter is the fastest and most powerful street-legal Bentley ever, a 621-horsepower monster that thunders to a top speed of almost 330kph (and thus breaks the magical 200mph barrier), doing so either on gasoline or biofuel.
As homage to the first 100 years of this honourable marque, publisher Assouline is releasing The Impossible Collection of Bentley. In a hand-stitched, leather-bound, limited-edition case, the tome presents an exhaustive list of the most groundbreaking Bentley models, with detailed critiques and explanations relating to each, as well as the various creative avenues Bentley took during the manufacturing process.
From the 1924 3-Litre (the first Bentley to win Le Mans) to the 1959 S2 (the first to feature a V8 engine), and all the way up to the 2018 Continental GT, we gain a better understanding – and a lavish view, no less – of how Bentley became the illustrious manufacturer is today.
A six-cylinder Bentley interior drive limousine with coachwork by Vanden Plas, 1923.
8-Litre. This is the last Bentley designed by W.O. Bentley in its entirety, and the one most would regard as his masterpiece.
Mulsanne Grand Limousine. Before the Second World War, all luxury cars had bespoke, coach-built bodies; today, almost none do. The Mulsanne Grand Limousine is an exception to that rule, featuring a 1,000mm wheelbase extension and four seats in the passenger compartment facing each other in pairs, in the style of a private jet.
3-Litre. The first production car and the car that turned Bentley from a start-up company with some promising engineering prototypes into a fully fledged car manufacturer.
The Bentley Boys at the 1927 Le Mans 24 Hours.
Frank Clement’s Tourist Trophy car, fitted with a streamlined body, was Bentley’s first single-seater automobile, pictured here in late 1922.
The Impossible Collection of BentleyPublished by AssoulineText by Andrew Frankel14 x 17 in – 35.5 x 42 cm | 200 pages | over 150 illustrations | hand-stitched leather bound limited edition
Images: © Bentley (The Speed 8, A six-cylinder Bentley interior drive limousine with coachwork by Vanden Plas, 8-Litre, The Bentley Boys); © Bentley Motors (A Bentley State Limousine); © Aline Coquelle (Mulsanne Grand Limousine); © Alan/Alamy Stock Photo (3-Litre); © W.O. Bentley Memorial Foundation (Frank Clement’s Tourist Trophy car); © 2020 Assouline
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