PLAYTIME IS OVER!

A road-legal 85%-scale electric 'Blower' Bentley has hit the streets...

- James Elliott

Let's address the elephant in the room at the outset - you are going to miss the thunder and the fumes, everything noxious and noisy that should turn the stomach, but instead stirs the soul. You will miss it terribly, achingly, deeply. This is a point underlined by a ride in the most famous of all ‘Blowers’ a couple of hours after a 20-mile test drive in the new Bentley Blower Junior that is the focal point of the day. That vintage behemoth is, of course, Tim Birkin’s 1930 Le Mans car, crown jewel of Bentley’s 48-car Heritage Collection and valued at some £25million. That this car has risen to the status of the most vaunted and valuable vintage Bentley of all is only the more astonishing because, though it frequently competed, it rarely finished and never won. In the process it proved correct the disapproving WO Bentley’s mantra of reliability first (by increasing capacity).

Inspired by Amherst Villiers and funded by the Hon Dorothy Paget, Bentley Boy Tim Birkin, who won the 1929 Le Mans in a Speed Six, set out to build just over 50 supercharged ‘Blower’ Bentley 4.5s of which four were to be team cars. ‘UU 5872’ was the second of those and, at Le Mans in 1930, blazed away with Caracciola’s Merc SSK before inevitably failing with four hours to go. Another Paget-entered Blower lasted a further hour before also expiring, while the third had failed even to make the start. Bentley Motors, meanwhile, took what must have been an immensely satisfying 1-2 with its Speed Sixes.

During their short, podium-averse careers, however, the cavalier, swaggering, win-or-bust Blowers with 125mph top speeds, 240hp and visible and audible pace captivated race fans. They still do.

UU 5872 was acquired by Bentley 25 years ago and was the model for the 12 continuation cars that it announced in 2019, for which the car was minutely (and handily) laser-scanned to ensure perfection.