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From the Archive: Foreword
by W.O. Bentley
Editor’s Note: Decades-old files contained this Foreword written by W.O. Bentley
for the 1961 book A History of the World’s Sports Cars by Richard Hough (Allen
& Unwin). This book has seemingly been long forgotten, so we reproduce WO’s
words here with the thought that someone, somewhere may find it useful. While it
contains nothing earth-shatteringly new, it does nicely summarize WO’s thoughts
about the place of his own cars in the world. And, one is reminded of the bittersweet
comment he once made to Sammy Davis: “If people had only been as enthusiastic
about the car in its early days as they were about it as an historic relic, the
success would have been unbounded!”
I HAVE NEVER been quite certain what
a sports car is, and when I was a young
man, the distinction between a sporting
and a touring car was so fine that some
people scarcely knew the difference. No
one could call some of the motors that
ran in the early Isle of Man Tourist Trophy
races and in hill climbs and sprints,
sports cars. What some people had done,
of course, was to take an ordinary car and
tune it up to make it faster, and perhaps
to lighten its chassis. That was really how
it all began, and how we began with the
DFP before the 1914–1918 war. It was
not until some time after this that the
sports car proper was born. To the ordinary
person, a sports car has always been
a small, open motorcar, with seats for two
and a noisy exhaust, which is unbearably
uncomfortable for more than the shortest run and probably
often “goes wrong.” Personally, I have never seen the sports
car in such terms. I have never thought high performance justified
discomfort, noise, and unreliability, and when, after my
pleasant years with locomotives, I entered the motor business
Duff and Clement at the 1924 Le Mans race.
and began to work with others to design
a car of our own, the principle on which
we worked was to build a machine that
would go far and fast, safely, reliably, and
comfortably. I have never really been very
interested in short journeys, which can be
accomplished perfectly satisfactorily with
beam axles, the shortest wheel base, and
an inefficient side-valve engine! For 10
miles nothing matters—and in any case
the engine oil is scarcely warm! I think
most people who have been responsible
for the design of interesting motorcars
have usually built the sort of machine
they like to drive themselves and which
are suitable for their own sort of motoring.
Since I was aware at a very early age
of the possibility of traveling great distances,
I wanted to make machines that
would allow me to do so efficiently and
at high speed. My first exercise in this
was carried out with the French DFP,
which I can see now as a sort of test bed.
It gave me enormous satisfaction to make
this quite humble little motor go faster
than ever its designer intended, to the
extent of taking records at Brooklands
and racing for 12 hours over the rough
and mountainous Isle of Man circuit at
an average of over 48 mph in 1914. The
3-litre car was the next logical step in the
process of expressing what we all wanted
of a motorcar. We did not think of it as a
sports car. We wanted speed, but we did
not want it at the expense of reliability or safety. We had, therefore,
like every design team, to compromise. The result was
that the 3-litre and the 4½-, 6½-, and 8-litre cars were not necessarily
the fastest cars in their class in the world. But because
the engine was always working within its capacity and we gave
a great deal of attention to brakes and springing
and weight distribution, they were safe and
reliable cars.
At Bentley Motors and later at Lagonda’s
we designed and produced the cars we wanted,
which were a reflection of our policy and our
personal tastes. This may sound obvious, but I
think people are inclined to forget how strongly
the personal element comes into the design of a
motorcar—that is conceived in terms other than
mass production for the average motorist. It is
possible to see distinct traces of the character,
personality, and tastes of, say, Captain Smith-
Clarke in the Alvis cars of the 1920s, of Louis
Coatalen in the Sunbeams from about 1909 on,
and of Georges Roesch in those splendid, sturdy,
and good-pedigree fast Talbots from the 14/45
car of 1927. I don’t think this argument should
be extended too far, if only because it will lead
to dispute and might even give offense, but it
©The ©The Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce
Owners Owners Club, Club, Inc. Inc.
9162 THE FLYING LADY January / February 2009
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