Gavin Green The Voice of Experience

Triple Le Mans winner, boxer, powerboat racer, scratch golfer, racehorse breeder… Beat that, Lewis

DUDLEY BENJAFIELD AND Bertie Kensington-Moir. racing drivers with names like these deserve a closer look. Then there was Woolf Barnato – diamond millionaire, triple Le Mans winner, heavyweight boxer, powerboat racer, scratch golfer, racehorse breeder and wicketkeeper for Surrey in his spare time. Was there ever a more compelling band of sporting brothers than the Bentley Boys? They drove hard (winning Le Mans five times), drank hard (Veuve Clicquot was apparently a favourite), partied energetically (the Savoy was used for one memorable post-race binge in ’27) and – more than any individual vehicle or model, single race or marketing stunt – made Bentley the exceedingly British brand that it is today. My favourite was Glen Kidston. Okay, the name was disappointingly non-Woosterish. His factual exploits, though, make Jean- Claude Van Damme’s fictional adventures seem meek. The wealthiest of the bunch, Kidston could have spent his life quaffing Krug, pacing the links in his plus-fours and shooting grouse with expensive guns on expansive estates. Instead, he survived two World War One torpedo sinkings, served with distinction on submarines, was a pioneer aviator, raced cars and bikes, won Le Mans with Barnato and was the sole survivor of a major air crash in ’29 in which he nobly tried to rescue the injured while horribly burned (his clothes were still smoking when he flagged down a passing motorist). He was a renowned big game hunter and in ’31 broke the flying record from the UK to Cape Town (six-and-a-half days in his Lockheed Vega monoplane). He never made it home. Flying over the Drakensberg mountains in South Africa, his plane broke up in a dust storm. Among those who mourned was Barbara Cartland, his former lover. Lewis and Jenson: try to beat that! A Bentley Boy even tried to save Bentley Motors from the financial abyss in the ’20s. Barnato bankrolled Bentley and became chairman while poor old WO stayed on as his loyal underling. (All to no avail – Bentley went broke and fell into the destructive clutch of rival Rolls-Royce, which systematically neutered it for the next 50 years, the sad denouement of which was putting Bentley badges on roly-poly Rollers). Now Bentley – nourished on the unlikely bosom of the VW Group – is closer to its roots than probably any other British car maker. They make big, heavy, wildly fast, flamboyantly powerful, ostentatiously expensive, exquisitely furnished, handwrought, stately sporting cars that blend grandeur and haste. Just like they did in the ’20s. Nowadays, buyers include celebrity sportsmen, rappers, IT millionaires, models and movie stars. The Bentley Boys would empathise with this bunch of self-made strutters. Naturally, some modern Bentleys tend to be ornately adorned, garish accoutrements to flamboyant owners. You and I may sniff at the mint green, shiny gold and banana yellow hues, bling meets zing. In fact, it’s what many owners – swaggering sunflowers rather than shrinking violets – want. The Continental GT – newly facelifted and recently sampled – is a ludicrously overendowed car. It weighs 200kg more than a Range Rover. It has a 6.0-litre engine in top guise, when most favour of two or perhaps three litres. It offers 12 turbocharged cylinders, when we all know that six – and actually four – are quite enough. It has 720Nm of torque. It can do 320kph (but where?). You drive a Continental GT’s W12 engine typically on about 10 per cent throttle, surfing a tidal wave of untapped torque. If many mainstream cars endorse the Swedish doctrine of lagom – ‘just enough’ – then the Continental GT subscribes to Oscar Wilde’s philosophy that nothing succeeds like excess. It’s a very Bentley Boy sort of car. No fast car is so relaxing at speed, yet so spirited when the mood takes: limo meets Lambo. If it is a bit too disengaged and remote for you and me then you know that David and Victoria, Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton will love it. (Keener drivers should choose the cheaper V8S Coupe, one of my favourite Grand Tourers). Bentley even has a successful motorsport programme, further proof of its bond with yesteryear. Alas, today’s drivers – tagged ‘Bentley Boys’ by marketing – are a shadow of their idiosyncratic forebears. How can they rival Dudley, Bertie or Woolf when the lead driver’s name is Guy Smith?