Photography Jonathan Jacob
Nearly 80 years on, we still associate Bentley with Crewe, in north-western England. It wasn’t always thus; the hulking Le Mans racers of WO Bentley’s era were Londoners and, following Rolls-Royce’s take-over in 1931, Bentleys were built at the parent company’s works in Derby. From that point and up to 2004, all Bentleys were based on Rolls-Royce underpinnings and, until the advent of BMW V8s and V12s in 1998, shared only Rolls-Royce engines, too. They were marketed under the epithet of ‘the silent sports car’ and, when the first of these appeared in 1933, even WO himself declared: ‘I would rather own this Bentley than any other car produced under that name.’ Praise indeed.