A Blower Bentley that is so ENORMOUSLY DESIRABLE

In 1930 Captain Wyndham contacted Mr Bentley at his Cricklewood works in North London and ordered himself a car. Not just any car, a car that 90 years later would be one of the most coveted vehicles in the world. Let’s Talk’s motoring writer David Clayton tells the story.

- David Clayton

NOW, WHETHER CAPT WYNDHAM called the Bentley works on the telephone and spoke to Walter Owen Bentley in person, we don’t know.

I’d like to think he sent offa letter in perfect copper-plate handwriting to enquire as to the possibility of the manufacture of a sports tourer for his personal use.

Anyway, later that year he became the proud owner of a four-and-a-half litre, supercharged Bentley. He’d wanted a Le Mans type car as the Bentleys had famously won a good few of the fabled 24-hour races. As was the case with this upper end of the market, Bentley provided the chassis and engine, Capt Wyndham arranged for Vanden Plas to make the four-seater body. Quite who attached what to which and when, is lost in the mists of time.

The whole thing probably added up to about £2,000. No small sum in 1930. He had his very sporty Bentley and to the best of our knowledge enjoyed it thoroughly because in 1936 it turned up for sale at a Bentley dealer in London looking a bit grubby and well used.

Little is then known of Capt Wyndham’s car until Dr Peter Hill was putting together a collection of classic cars around the late 1960s and bought the Bentley. Fortunately for all of us, Dr Hill’s cars eventually became the Caister Castle Car Collection and we can go and see them today.

Step forward car restorer David Wall who, on the odd occasion, has graced these pages before. “I first saw it five years ago, in bits,” David recalls. “It was back to a bare chassis. Someone had had a go at restoring it, but there were parts missing.”