On the trail of the Bentley boys in the Bentley Blue Train
Вставка
- Опубліковано 14 гру 2013
- In 1930, Bentley Boy Woolf Barnato bet £100 that he could race the famous Le Train Bleu from Cannes to London before the train could reach Calais. 83 years on, Steve Cropley tells the story.
SUBSCRIBE to Autocar: smarturl.it/autocar
In January 1930 Rover claimed its Light Six had gone faster the Le Train Bleu, one of the world's most luxurious trains, which ran from Cannes in the south of France to Calais in the north. One evening at dinner, Bentley Boy Woofe Barnato said that was nothing special, and he could race the Blue Train, reach Calais, cross the English Channel and reach the Conservative Club in London before the train arrived in Calais. He succeeded with four minutes to spare. Here, Steve Cropley retraces the Bentley Boys' London haunts in the very car than Barnato made the journey.
Autocar, the world's leading motoring magazine and website, delivers industry-leading news, the most in-depth car reviews and opinion from our team of experts. Our presenters include some of the world's top motoring journalists who have unrivalled access to the world's fastest, rarest, most exotic and most exciting cars on some of the world's best roads and race tracks.
Can a supercar beat a superbike? Can a Audi A1 outrun a Nissan GT-R on a wet circuit? Can a Porsche 911 slay a Corvette on the drag strip? Autocar pitches the giants of the performance car world against each other to deliver the all-important verdict.
• Autocar challenges - d...
Read Autocar's Bentley reviews: www.autocar.co.uk/car-reviews/...
Visit www.autocar.co.uk for the latest news, reviews and analysis
New videos are uploaded to Autocar's UA-cam channel each week. Don't miss a single one. Subscribe to the channel now: smarturl.it/autocar
/ autocar
LIKE Autocar on Facebook: www.autocar.co.uk/facebook
FOLLOW Autocar on Twitter: / autocar
+1 Autocar on Google+: plus.google.com/+autocar - Авто та транспорт
This car is outrageously beautiful.
leloodallasmultipass , I agree, like the Matt and gloss, makes it!
This was the car that was made with the prize money from beating the train. The actual "Blue Train" car was a four door Bentley saloon. You'd think a Bentley dealer would know this detail.
It has been a Mulliner saloon!
I don't think there was any prize money from beating the train. I read Barnato offered a £200 bet, but his dining companions didn't take it up.
Meanwhile, although the Gurney Nutting car hadn't had its guarantee signed off by the time of the run, I get the impression it was well on the way to being finished. Maybe you got to pay the vast bulk on delivery like for a modern mass-produced car, but anyway Barnato wasn't short of a few quid and I don't think he needed prize money to pay for it. As Bentley Chairman perhaps he gave himself a discount, on the chassis at least! He owned or kept quite a few Bentleys in his time.
The Gurney Nutting Coupe was not the Bentley Woolf Barnato used to beat the Blue Train. He drove a Speed Six Saloon . The Gurney Nutting car was a commission to commemorate the race and called the Blue Train Special
THANK YOU RK! The same Tired BS is repeated with small voices Trying to set the record straight! on top of that the beautiful GN car is a reproduction for which Many have been made. The original I believe has been lost to time. McCaw in Seattle, WA own the GN Coupe AND one of the reproductions. Saw them together at the 2007 National RR/Bentley meet in Stevenson, WA.
Oh really? I always thought this was the car that they intended to use but it wasn’t ready in time. Thank you for setting that straight for me.
As has already been pointed out, this is NOT the car that Babe Barnato raced against the Blue Train. That car, also a Speed Six, was an H.J.Mulliner-bodied formal saloon. This Speed Six "Sportsman Coupe" by Gurney Nutting was built two months later.
The tale of the Blue Train Bentley is perfect for a movie.
Love the Profile of that car, how it comes together at the rear and then cut off including the rear wheel covers is just super ;)
The Blue Train Bentley. doesn't get any bigger, THE Bentley. excellent to see it in action on modern London streets!
Old Is Gold ❤️
Bentley has more heritage than ever Rolls Royce. Never has there ever been a Manufacturer for sports and luxury cars than Bentley motors. WO would be so proud today. Thank goodness it still with us today thanks to VW
My all time favourite Bentley. Thank you for doing a great video of this gorgeous car. Brilliant.
My all time favourite car! I think racing green do a wonderful recreation.
Astonishing that this jewel of automotive engineering and its stunning design doesnt give the observer the feeling to look at an "old timer". Its timeless beautyness end elegance fits like a handmade shoe into every century. Contrary it teaches us modern people in 21st century what crap design of plastic cars we surround us nowadays in daily driving and stuck in endless traffic jams. Tks sharing this vid. It was a pleasure and worth every second.
Being an old skool Model A hot rodder, this machine is just soooo beautiful...looks like a nice factory roof chop. Perfect stance, color, interior and engine...just amazing!!!
I usually hate pre war cars but boy o boy that is easily the most beautiful Bentley I've ever seen. Makes the modern ones look that much more gaudy and ridiculous
And your hate for pre war cars stems from what? please
shyml1
They're ugly and primitive. Everyone doesn't have to like what you like.
That's a sweeping generalisation - you're more than entitled to your opinion....but I think that if you looked further than what you view as 'primitive' your opinion would change. There were so many fantastic, and downright revolutionary prewar cars (Riley, Bentley, Bugatti, Talbot to list but a few).
Alex Green No need to get defensive, it's just a different opinion than yours. I don't like the general aesthetic of pre-war cars so I have no desire to investigate further. It's OK.
Hate? Catch a grip FFS.
The shots the videographer got in front of The Savoy are really beautiful.
What a great story. Thanks guys
Really enjoyed this vid. Thanks!
I can remember back in 1968, Autocar featured the restoration of this Gurney Nutting Coupe in an issue. The article showed the car in its derelict state- I seem to recall there were no tyres on the wheels. It was mentioned that the rear window was enlarged for safety reasons. I bought the mag because as a kid, I was a Bentley nut. Foolishly, I loaned this cherished copy to a friend and never got it back! I can remember about that time W O was interviewed in the AA's Drive magazine- he talked about his time at Doncaster Works with the Great Northern Railway and his love of powerful machines. He mentioned he did not like electric locos- he said they were just boxes sucking in power- not generating it, like a diesel or diesel electric locomotive!
OH NO! Not Bloody again! This is NOT the actual "Blue train Bentley. This was owned by Mr. Barnato, (and there are lots of replicas) but the car that actually raced the Blue train was another he owned. I don't have the actual serial numbers of the cars, but they are available through fairly easy research. This subject has been literally beaten to death over decades. Now I shall wait for the fallout, again. And keep my head down for rotten eggs i suppose!
2 years later, and no fallout. No one cares.
I love the last shot :)
Is it a antique and how much and how many left. Absolutely magnificent, art on wheels.
Nice video. I would have liked a bit more information about the car itself as a driving machine though but perhaps inner city London wasn´t the place for it.
Beautiful in every aspect.
What a gorgeous car !
Three cheers for Sidney Charles Houghton Davis. Sammy was Sports Editor of AutoCar. And an amazing chap! 1887-1981. He was my Great Uncle.
wow:O really good looking car:D buuuut i'm still madly in love with the bentley continental gt!
This car is scandalously proportioned - a real rule breaker in its day with timeless appeal. If you didn’t know it’s true age you would think it was recently made for a fantasy action movie set in the 1920’s.
brilliant piece this and to end at the savoy, a hotel my younger brother nearly burned down at 5 years old in the late 70's hahahaha
what a cool looking car
i just love these old bentleys my lotto win
Stunning car
Fantastic car...wonderful London...
The ultimate Tommy Shelby automobile!!!!
I have a collection of diecast models of this beauty and I think it's the "best car ever made" The "minichamp" diecast is the better quality in diecast. The Bentley blue train and the London Routemaster bus are, in my eyes, the best ever built road vehicles
You can never get good diecast cars anymore. They used to be everywhere.
I regularly kick myself for getting rid of my very large collection of (mostly) Dinky Toys and Corgi models. I was fifteen at the time and, like so many teenagers, seriously stupid.
Wow, very nice vid!! Prettieest seen in years, enjoyed more than Mr. Harris drifting F12's. Could watch this for hours if'd make the same ride only like documentary or so
Shame they've made themselves look so silly by getting the story of this car wrong.
Красивая машина !
2020 100 years on anyone?
Wish they would make cars with modern technologies and outside look like this...
I can't imagine the rear visibility being exactly stellar on that thing.
The rear window was made larger when the car was rebuilt around 1967/8. You can imagine what it was like as built!
would love to have one to cruise in
In the U.S. they have GM
In the U.K. they have BM
Nice video, but that wasn't the car that raced the Blue Train. Barnato had two Speed Sixes, one with a saloon body that he used to win the bet, and this one ,built later, that he called the Blue Train Bentley as a publicity stunt.
he called it the blue train special
I love this car I wonder how much it cost and if they have it on Touro.
It makes my teeth itch when this car is called "The Blue Train Bentley". It never was! The Bentley that won that race (and associated bet) was a Speed Six saloon. The Gurney Nutting coupé wasn't built until several months after that event! It has only become known as "The Blue Train Bentley" since Terence Cuneo incorporated it into his imagined painting of the car and locomotive racing alongside (which they also never did - the real car involved took a route well away from the railway).
I have a print of the Cuneo painting hanging in my garage. Not the actual "Blue Train" car or not, I'm impressed that a car of that age can negotiate present day London traffic with (apparently) no problems.
Strange that just 24 years later you had the Jag D-Type yet there have been few significant changes in the motoring world, electric cars? engine and fuel efficiency, safety improvements? since 1994.
Gorgeous car and interesting to see it driving around. But the perpetration of the BS was a disappointment.
Nice!
Wrong car. The Gurney-Nutting body car is not the car that beat the Blue Train. SEE :-- "The Blue Train Bentley controversy" on Wikipedia.
Captain Woolff-Barnato had a Gurney Nutting as his private car,but the Blue Train Battle he fought with a Mulliner Saloon !
Anybody notice some odd treble sounds around the 5:15 mark? Poor audio recording? Clipping?
armonía elegancia y deportivo
When cars were rolling works of art and not amorphous blobs of plastic.
That key looks a lot like John Deere tractor keys from the 60s.
I thought it was by no means 100% certain that Woolf actually used this car for the Blue train race?! - and that he may well have used a different Bentley with different coachwork.
Ag Photographic it's 100% certain he did not, on account of this car not existing at the time..
If I ever win the lotto, second phone call will be to Peterson Engineering's shop to order one of his Blue Train models. The only question is ..Blower or Meteor??? 8-D
+KlunkerRider I'd go for the Blower personally, keep it more like it would of been back in the day.
+Harey0407 Well the Blower would be the sensible, historically accurate choice, but the thought of a 27 liter 170mph Blue Train Meteor is such an outrageously totally *stark raving mad* idea as to be undeniably attractive.
Of course the day when I signed the contract with Bob Peterson to build it, I would have to sign it with my toes while wearing a straight jacket while screaming "I want one of those!" , it would only be appropriate ;-)
PS first phone call post-Lotto, would be to Pur Sang for a Type 35 Bugatti, yes I am a bit mad :-D
KlunkerRider You do have a great point good sir, and no you aren't a bit mad I'd probably be right there with you getting a Type 35 Bugatti from Pur Sang.
Alfa Romeo 8C by Touring may kindly be considered before yu plunk your money down, strait jacketed or not.
+shyml1 the Disco Volante? ..yeeeeeeeeeees 😎
l have one in my collection, at 1/18th scale, an exact replica by Minichamps. A staggering model of a fabulous car. The video is tremendous, except for that ridiculous music. The music we all wanted to hear would certainly come from the Bentley!
Forgive my ignorance, but are the roof and Matt panels paint or leather/material covered?
niptodstan some of the panels are painted and some are leather. I think the bonnet & wings are paint & the "body" is leather.
That key could be copied in ten minutes freehand with a file and sheetmetal 😂
They should institute a new plan for London. Electric vehicles only with the exception of any car made before 1976. No exceptions apart from residents and trade vehicles. There is no point in driving within Inner London for decades now and its got to change in a way that returns character to this formerly magical place.
I doubt any London Bobby would ever place a fine on that car's windshield ;)
Hmmmm.......appears to be largely an advert for Jack Barckley...
The first car to beat the Blue train (to Calais) was a Rover 6 Light.
I'd still not say no to this one though ;)
That's right ! The second has been an ALVIS Silver Eagle which has beaten the train by more than three hours despite a half hour delay at Lyon! But Barnatos bet included the Channel crossing !
I believe if my understanding of history is correct the car shown is Not the Blue Train. Also the car in the piece the original was lost and they have made some replicas. The guy that owns Macay Communications in Seattle owns the actual Blue Train AND one of the replicas that is like the one in the piece. The two cars-the actual Blue Train and the replica were at the RROC national meet in 2007 at Skimania Lodge on the Columbia river. Anyone that knows anything additional I would love to hear it. I was at the meet with my 1963 Standard Saloon S3 (1 of 27) Bentley.
Lovely motor but this is not the car that beat the Blue Train. A pleasant film somewhat spoiled by a couple of people who clearly don't know what they're talking about.
can they make a 2024 version of this car?
IT LOOKS LIKE A 4 WHEELED LOCOMOTIVE.
autocars club!!
I dont understand why people don't drive classics such as these daily... they're meant to be driven for starters and if you could use them daily back then why not now?
How much km with one litre ?
3:50 Anyone want to counterfit THAT key ?! I could probably do it under an hour just from the picture. It's getting to try it out that will be difficult!!
And when I thought that the car is the most beautiful thing in this video, I saw that woman at 5:09
I would have preferred to see more of the car anf less of the London tour.
She should have been replaced with another Bentley
How do I get a job as Director of VIP and Royal Relations with Bentley Motors?
Shame about the music. Not the best time setter
I wish i had the money, and im not the only one thinking that right? XD
Prelepo!
Наверное, Блю Трейн дороже современных Бэнтли стоит.
I'm just saying, it is green not blue. How did it get the name 'Blue Train'?
Le Train Bleu was the name of the train service in France that they raced against. Hence the "Blue Train" name.
XXX...
I just read in a story about this car that the rear seat was installed sideways because the owner liked to pick up girls from the street and wanted to check the female parts for diseases before taking them home.
the Presenter could have worn a jacket
They don't learn, do they? The music is surplus to requirements.
I wonder if it was thought a match to the car's vintage?
Talk about the muther fucking car good damned it.
There R Bentleys and then there are new Bentleys :) If u get my drift
Robert did definitly not drove that
Calling a coach builder a body-builder, what a prole.
Brendan Carberry he built the body for this car no? That would make him the cars body builder. Hope this helps..
the camera car is a Mulsanne, I'm just saying.
Not a fan of the modern Bentleys. The between war models were in my opinion better than anything RR was producing.
Someone buy cropley a suit and show him how to wear it.If you're in the visual media and you're driving around the west end in blue train at least try and look like you deserve it.
A fabulous car, the story, of course, is nonsense...
Great car but a totally useless location for it. It would have been far better to take it to Goodwood and let it stretch its legs a little.
Absolutely. I thought we sae too much of London and not enough of the car
There's an amazing Gordon Ramsay restaurant at Grosvenor Square!
Sleek Bentley
🚀
home of the boys who started out the supercar? I call bullshit on that, everyone knows lamborghini invented the supercar, bentley cannot take credit for any of that.
Lamborghini created the modern super car.... prior to that it was expensive granturismo's which can actually be credited to lancia... furthermore in the 1930's the dominant super car was not gently by any means it was alfa romeo and their 8 and 6 c's, those cars were untouchable
Adam Othman supercar is not a word that can be used before 1967, I believe it has a specific meaning. Bentleys however were considered fast, they won le mans 6 times in a row I believe? In near road going specification at that. Alfa romeos were also fast, but on the gran prix stage where they mainly competed, they were shadowed by bugatti type 35s and 59s. Don't forget bugatti's road cars either, little could come close for speed.
At the time the alfas were considered the fastest cars in the wold and i think that speaks for itself. furthermore i said prior to super cars they were grand tourers which was created by lancia
Equivalent bugattis won more gran prix. Alfa did well in a wide verity of motorsports, but without dominating any of them in particular.
you're right but then again in production cars nothing cold touch the alfa's the only car I've ever seen that could was the buggatti royale but that was so expensive royalty could hardly afford it... furthermore the car in this video is a road car not a track car and thats what I'm discussing...
0:57 *The hair grows on the thin used car salesman’s lip not so much on the dome of his head. Bangkok- Johnnie CarSanook Media*
A rather sad video. Two very amateur presenters who do not do credit to either the car nor the places they visit. Jack Barclay just over the road from the Colony Club, Mortons, and of course the Savoy - so much more could have been made of these magic places. I used to park my original Mk 6 drophead outside JB just to wind them up! And a Bentley cocktail in the Savoy? No mention of the only drive on the right side road in England, nor the roundabout specially designed to accommodate the turning circle of a taxi or that it was designed so that the offside doors were next to the entrance so that the driver/doorman could open the door and the passengers were at the door. And what were the ingredients of the Bentley cocktail? An amateur video done on the cheap and not very instructive or romantic!!
yucks modern crappy german bentleys, cant they make their own motors v12,s v16,s the original ones before rr and vw porsche audi were soo pure english now you get no vibe from them anymore
W16's, if I may correct. The V-16's are the exclusive domain of prewar Cadillac's, Mormon's and Audi.