Test Driving the Bond Cars

in what looks to be the first in a series, some lucky swine at the Telegraph gets to drive some of the cars associated with 007 starting off with the beast that was his Bentley. I saw one of these on the Old Brompton last year and the thing is as 'beastly' in person as these images show.





James Bond's 'Blower' Bentley driven


He might drive Aston Martins these days, but James Bond was originally a Bentley man. Andrew Frankel tries the original Bond car, the 4 1/2 Litre 'Blower'

Quote :

Welcome to the first in a series of features where, so far as is possible with words and pictures alone, we try to put you behind the wheel of the most interesting cars to have screeched, slid and, just occasionally, skied and submarined their way into the affections of Her Majesty’s most loyal servant, Commander James Bond CMG RNVR. My mission? To seek out and celebrate the ones that were truly worthy of 007 while ruthlessly exposing those that should never even have entered Major Boothroyd’s laboratory (better known to you and me as Q branch), let alone been allowed to chill the Bollinger of the world’s least secret agent.

We start long before Bond made his film debut in 1962’s Dr No. Nine years earlier he roared into public consciousness between the covers of Casino Royale and at the wheel of the car Ian Fleming always intended him to drive: a supercharged 4 1/2 Litre ‘Blower’ Bentley. This was the machine already made famous in the 1920s and ’30s by its exploits at Le Mans and Brooklands, Sir Henry ‘Tim’ Birkin hunched over its Bakelite wheel, trademark polka-dot scarf flapping in the wind.

I’m sure the perception today is that the Blower was wildly successful and put Britain on the motor-racing map. And the only problem with that is it’s complete rubbish. A legendary slice of British Boy’s Own iconography today, in period the Blower was a terrible racing car – quick but also hopelessly unreliable. WO Bentley loathed it, saying to supercharge a Bentley was “to pervert its design and corrupt its performance”. Bentley won Le Mans five times in seven attempts between 1924 and 1930, but not once with a supercharged car. In fact, no Blower Bentley ever won any race of note.

Not that this matters today. I just have to figure out how to drive it. This Blower belongs to Bentley, and at Le Mans in 1930 Birkin used it to force the pace of the 7-litre supercharged Mercedes-Benz SSK of Rudolf Caracciola in the hope it might then break. Their battle was so intense that once Birkin overtook the Merc on the grass at 125mph, effectively on three wheels as the fourth had thrown its tyre tread. But it worked – rather inevitably the Blower broke down, but so did the Mercedes, allowing one of the slower but relentlessly reliable unblown Speed Six Bentleys to cruise to victory.

You jump in. Literally. There’s no door because at Le Mans it’s quicker to vault over the side. The view down that louvred bonnet is one of the best you’ll ever see, even more Bulldog Drummond than James Bond. In the cockpit there are so many gauges scattered everywhere the dashboard looks like an emporium for instrument fetishists. The wheel is necessarily vast – you’d simply not be able to turn it were it smaller – but the bigger problem is pedals that place the accelerator in the middle and the brake to the right. And the gearbox has no syncromesh, so unless you precisely match the revs of the engine to those of the gear you’re about the select, you’ll soon be driving to the metal on metal gnashings of a transmission protesting in agony.

It’s actually quite easy to fire the Blower up. You turn on the magnetos – which produce sparks mechanically so the car can suffer total electrical failure and still run - retard the ignition via a lever on the steering wheel and hit a big button. It’s not just the engine that then comes alive but seemingly the entire car. One of WO’s mates fondly referred to the basso profundo rumble as “that bloody thump” and you’ll probably never hear a better description.

Your early miles are hard. The steering is approximate at best and the brakes better at making unexpected direction changes than actually slowing you down. Every single gear change needs mental preparation because each needs to be expertly timed and requires you to press the clutch twice, with a precisely meted dose of throttle between the two if you’re changing down.




Then just when you’re about to accept that you’ll never understand how anyone even drove this car let alone raced it, you’ll string a sequence of curves together with a couple of silent shifts and suddenly it starts to make sense. Confidence grows and the less tentative you are with it the easier the car becomes to drive. Drive it like the lily-livered, yellow-bellied coward it can so easily make you feel and it will grind you into the dust. Take charge of it and it will provide one of the most profound driving experiences it is possible have on a public road.

If ever a car truly thundered, a Blower at full chat is that car. That engine has 240bhp, probably twice as much torque, and in a car that thanks to its flimsy fabric body is far, far lighter than it looks, it’s properly quick, even by modern standards. The weight of the supercharger slung out far ahead of the front axle line makes it inherently reluctant to turn into bends, but there’s so little grip and so much power you can always force the back around to correct the problem. It’s a car that needs wide open spaces as its too large and cumbersome for little lanes, but put it in its preferred environment and the sight, sound, smell and feel of the Blower will live with you forever.

How suitable was it for James Bond? Fleming’s original character was powerful, rough, tough, massively flawed, irredeemably charming and very, very British. And that, down to its Rudge-Whitworth wheel spinners, is what this Bentley is too.




Bondometer: 9/10




Drives of James Bond cars will return

the article has a six picture gallery towards the bottom for those who want more.


https://bondandbeyond.forumotion.com/post?f=24&mode=newtopic

I'd like James May to test drive the new Aston DB10 before Craig gets behind the wheel.

Captain Slow commanding a DB10. Preferably before I get my bus pass.

See, if it was old Top Gear it'd be Quentin Wilson who once described the Mercedes C Class as like Sandra Bullock being dipped in Tartare Sauce.

My love of this Bentley exceeds even that for the Aston's and predates my interest in Bond by way of 'The Avengers'.....though sad to read it is such a pig to drive. Top Gear did present a rather spiffing update a few series back with a Spitfire's adapted engine no less.

Yes, the Avengers got there before Bond too here. Though reading Casino Royale the other day, picturing Bond hammering down the roads in the Bentley settled more-so than ol' John Steed.

Back when cars were cars. Or so some say.

Seems the series of these test drives continued but were well hidden, or to muggings here. For those who are interested or maybe just like to look at the pictures we now have the Esprit and DB5 'tested'

I can't imagine the Lotus' involved diving off Embankment into the Thames though.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/classics/james-bond-cars/lotus-esprit/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/classics/james-bond-cars/aston-martin-db5/