Bentley, A Motoring Miscellany
A Random Reference for the Modern Enthusiast
by Nicholas Foulkes
“This book is . . . a magpie-like assembly of curiosities concerning this evocative British marque: a smorgasbord of esoteric information to be devoured at one sitting or picked at over time.”
Tucked away in an obscure corner of a too-full shelf in this commentator’s library and only recently found was this little book. Instantly curious what was in the beautifully boxed presentation [1], it was impossible not to be charmed to find this elegant coat-pocket size book which I have no recollection of having acquired, much less when.
Right from its author’s dedication I sensed it was going to be a delight. Here’s how that dedication reads: “For all those who, like me, have pursued their passion for the winged B even unto financial disaster” (the Winged B being a reference to the hood ornament, with, speaking of random references, the letter B reading correctly no matter from which side you see it).
Reading on, I found a light-hearted, yet fact-based approach. That is very much reflected in some of the preliminary words on the dust jacket flaps. One blurb promises the “book will not fail to amuse all those who share a passion for the winged B.” Another tells that the book’s author, Nicholas Foulkes, is “a keen backgammon player, [who] lives beyond his means” and has gathered this “captivating collection of facts and fables.”
Next come the three full pages comprising the Table of Contents. Among the list is one for the production figures of Bentleys 1919 to 2004, another telling a bit about “Bentleys that never made it into production” (above). Illustrating that last mentioned, as well as a number of other pages throughout the book, are beautifully executed little line drawings. All are credited as the work of a Linconshire-based graphics artist named Mark Watkinson whose online portfolio is enormous.
The longest segment synopsizes the Bentley timeline of significant events and achievements 1888–2005, taking 20 pages to do so. No Bentley book could be complete without some version of a Bentley car with Woolf Barnato (Chairman of Bentley Motors) behind the wheel versus the Blue Train. This book reproduces “A Newpaper Report of the Blue Train Race” but doesn’t reveal which newspaper [2] it was found in. That is followed by a page listing “Bentleys in the movies” from 1963 to 2005 and another listing “Prices realized by Bentleys belonging to Sir Elton John, CBE, auctioned by Christie’s, June 5, 2001.”
Included in the something-for-everyone category is an essay on “The Problems in making a car travel 200 mph” having to do with “the laws of physics dictate the power required to increase the speed of a car rises exponentially” and “the science of aerodynamics . . . making a car both stable and composed at speed approaching 200 mph is no easy task.” Another brings the list of current-day Bentley Boys naming them, with mini-bios for each, as Tom Kristensen, Rinaldo Capello, and Guy Smith as well as Mark Blundell, David Brabham, and Johnny Herbert. (Their names and 2003 achievements surely need no explanation here, right?)
That’s just a wee taste of the 72 vignettes of “fact and fable” offered by this book. Truly something for just about every Bentley enthusiast—or anyone just interested in a bit of entertaining reading—and the pleasure of savoring the look and feel of this elegant little book’s pages. I’ll leave you with a stanza said to be from “Capt. Woolf Barnato’s Instruction for the Post-Le Mans Party, 1929.”
“The course is a natural one, and of course the only course open to you is naturally to enter as a matter of course. (How coarse!!!)”
- If you buy used, know it’s not complete without the (unmarked) outer box shown at the top.
- Mandatory pointer-outer: That undated newspaper article refers to the car as a “standard Speed Six;” Foulkes reprints it as-is. If he wanted to do more than “amuse” he could have editorialized that if it was printed before 2002 (which it obviously is) it is referring to the unmistakably-shaped Gurney Nutting three-seater chassis HM2855 that had been thought to be the Blue Train Bentley ever since Barnato himself (who had ordered that car) allowed this error to stand uncorrected which caused it to remain in circulation for decades. Thanks to the sainted Clare Hay’s research we know, since 2002, that HM2855 hadn’t even been bodied at the time of the race; Barnato used one of his other Speed Sixes, BA2592, instead. And Foulkes knows that—he writes about it in his next Bentley book a year after this one.
Copyright 2026 Helen V Hutchings (speedreaders.info)
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