Bentley 3-Litre

By an odd coincidence, both Henry Royce and  Walter O. Bentley (see photo, middle) , two of Britain’s most vaunted automotive names, began their careers as railway apprentices. Many years later, in the 1920s, the two men competed  for the title of best English car maker- Bentley with his hell-for-leather quasi-racing machines and Royce with his elegantly refined Rolls-Royce models. When the Depression strike and Bentley’s business collapsed, Royce was right there to pick up the pieces, acquiring the rights to the Bentley brand in a way that had to stick in W.O.’s craw, and the two names have been connected uncomfortably ever since.

Uncomfortable class uniqueness

One has to believe that the aristrocratic Bentley would have felt more at home with Royce’s partner, Charles S. Rolls, who was born into British nobility, than with Royce, whose father was a down-on-his-luck country miller. While Royce was selling newspapers to help his families meager fortunes, Rolls was matriculating at Eton and Bentley was striving to improve his cricket game. Bentley was also a motorcycle aficionado, racing a Rex at Brooklands in 1909, among other two-wheeled exploits. By 1910, his interest had turned to automobiles. He bought a Riley V-twin that year, and in the Teens he bought two Sizaire-Naudins. His occupation  as a railway apprentice was rather short, a way to use his obvious mechanical skills and gain some self-discipline besides. For some time,  he worked as a mechanic at the National Motor Cab Company, and then he joined his brother as a principal in a DFP car dealership in London.

Liked cars as machines

Unlike most salespeople, he took a genuine interest in the mechanical facets of the automobiles he was selling, and soon he was altering  them to produce better performance. One of his neatest tricks was to exchange  lighter aluminum-copper alloy pistons for the DFP’s standard-issue pistons. Later,  he reconfigured the car’s camshaft for racing models of the car as well. However, the success with DFP was short-lived because World War I intervened. In uniform, Bentley redesigned the French Clerget rotary aircraft engine, equipping it with (not surprisingly) aluminum pistons, and the re-done engine delivered tremendously better performance. In his honor, the new engines he labored on were named BR1 and BR2 (for “Bentley Rotary”,) and Bentley was promoted to lieutenant. When the war was finished,  and he and the service parted company, Bentley rejoined his brother in the car dealership. But after the success of his mechanical feats while in the military, he yearned to do more than peddle cars; he wanted to manufacture them.

Formation of Bentley Motors

In the summer of 1919,  he started a company called Bentley Motors Ltd to do just that. Teaming with Frank Burgess, a former Humber competition driver who had become popular  for drawing up the dual overhead cam engine that competed ably in the pre-war Tourist Trophy races, Bentley invented a motor car that was quite advanced for the day. Understandably, the chassis design owed much to Humber, but the engine was considerably different and the heart of the new car. Though the engine had but one camshaft (driven via a shaft from the crank), it did provide four valves per cylinder, quite a novelty in 1919. It used two plugs per cylinder, a more ordinary practice at the time, and its crankcase was cast of light alloy rather than being a steel stamping for rigidity and weight savings. Block and head were cast in a piece, and the engine had an exceptionally extended stroke of 5.8-inches and a 3.1-inch bore. (This odd combination of stroke and  bore was no doubt influenced by British tax laws which calculated taxable horsepower by extrapolating from the engine’s bore.) Bentley violated the tradition by calling his creation a “3-Litre.” At that time,  it was common practice for British auto manufacturers to label their cars with their horsepower (for example, the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost was the officially called the 40/50), but the calculated horsepower for the Bentley was just 15.9, which would have been marketing suicide and was inaccurate on top of it. Actual horsepower from the sophisticated engine was more than double that number.

Giving name was the most radical change

Aside from the engine, the Bentley 3-Litre was traditional in design. Substantial girders united by four cross members served as the frame. Semi-elliptical springs were used at all four edges, and the original wheelbase was 117.5-inches. The 3-Litre utilized  a 4-speed gearbox operating through a rather un-modern cone-type clutch. The right-hand mounted gearbox lever was most often affixed exterior of the bodywork in what was apparently a right-hand-drive vehicle. Until 1924, two-wheel brakes were used, and soon after,  the Bentley works added drums to the front wheels as well. The sad fact that dogged Bentley Motors Ltd throughout its life was its weak financial  condition. The company was started on less than $50,000, and it approached automobile manufacture with a cottage industry fashion. A simple example of this is the reality that, though the first 3-Litre was launched  to the public at the London Motor Show of 1919 and deliveries were promised by June 1920, the first car did not, in fact, reach a customer’s hands until September 1921. To add insult to injury, when it was  finally delivered,  the price had leaped up more than 50 percent.

Racing always captured attention

The catch-as-catch-can nature of his manufacturing operation, however,  didn’t stop Bentley from going racing. In 1922,  his three-car team prevailed and won the team prize at the well-respected Tourist Trophy race on the Isle of Man, with individual cars finishing second, fourth and fifth. This smashing victory against the best from England and the Continent immediately grabbed Bentley Motors some much-needed recognition. The coup on the Isle of Man was followed two years later by John Duff’s success  in the 24-Hours of Le Mans, a victory all the more remarkable because Duff’s was, at least nominally, a private entry. Despite racing  triumphs, though, Bentley’s sales trickled along–21 in 1921, 122 in 1922, 204 in 1923 and a whopping 402 in 1924. Still Bentley’s success in motor racing, which would go on to include the most legendary Le Mans victory of them all, the win by the 4-Liter in 1927 after a crash had seemingly put it out of the race, purchased  the firm some very famous clients. Among Bentley owners were  Prince (soon-to-be King) George, Gertrude Lawrence, and Beatrice Lilly.

Wheelbase stretched  on the 3-Litre

This admired clientele also prevailed upon Bentley to build a longer wheelbase model of the 3-Litre that would accommodate more elaborate bodywork. The result of their lobbying was a 130-inch wheelbase chassis, though that, too, was most often outfitted with a  4-seater open touring body emphasized by cycle fenders. By 1928,  the 3-Litre had been mainly superceded by the 4- and 6-Litre cars. The latter was Bentley’s way of going after the Rolls-Royce buyer. With over 400 cubic inches of displacement, the six cylinder was nearly as  refined and as quiet as the car bearing the fabled double-R’s, yet still had 85-mile-per-hour capabilities. Racing models of this version were victorious two years running at Le Mans, which in the 20’s  was a Bentley playground. W.O. Bentley’s last  stab at the luxury car market was his substantial 8-Litre. Essentially,  a bored-out model of the Speed Six, the 7982 cubic centimeter engine supplied up to 225 horsepower. Sadly, though, by the time it was launched, the Depression had begun and Bentley Motors Ltd would soon be in receivership. After Rolls-Royce  obtained his company, Bentley moved on to Lagonda, where he designed several excellent engines. Before he passed away  in 1971, he would see his rare creations deified and none more than his original, the 3-Litre Bentley.

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