SHORT BACK & GLIDES

Eccentric enthusiast Captain RG McLeod's series of Manx-tailed Bentley Specials reached its zenith with this unique S2 Continental.

- MARTIN BUCKLEY

The world of Rolls-Royce and Bentley has always attracted its fair share of eccentrics, probably because the sort of wealth associated with the cars tends to bring out the extremes of behaviour associated with the kinds of big egos that (usually) go hand-in-glove with big money.

Derby (and Crewe, post-1945) was always mindful of the effect that oddball demands from oddball customers might have on its wellgroomed, carefully manicured image. Thus, it was an unspoken policy that any body style, feature or even colour scheme that was deemed to be extreme enough to bring the name into 'disrepute' was to be either politely discouraged or its patron threatened with having his or her factory warranty revoked.

Having said all that, it is surprising how many curious-looking one-offs did slip through the net. Some were attributed to overseas coachworks over whom, presumably, RollsRoyce management had less control. Post-war, Chapron and Franay of France committed some horrors on Silver Wraith and Phantom chassis; ditto, in Turin, Vignale and Ghia.

At their best, British coachbuilders had a natural feel for what was required and created some of the most elegantly restrained and wellproportioned shapes ever conceived. At their worst, they could be frumpy and municipal or, in the case of Hooper with its sweeping Empress wing lines, slightly flouncing and camp. You had to be a Liberace - or a diamondencrusted, mink-stole-wearing '50s starlet to look at home in some of its creations (even one of the well-proportioned examples). Then there were the dotty millionaires cast in the mould of Nubar Gulbenkian, whose slab-sided Silver Wraith Sedanca de Ville must have caused outrage in the Crewe boardroom.

The firm's relationship with a certain Captain Roderick George McLeod is harder to fathom.