Blast in the past: reborn Bentley Blower Continuation driven

Late in 2019, Bentley announced that it would make 12 more Blowers, each as close to the original specification of Number Two as possible. Not replicas, but tool-room copies, genuine facsimile reproductions, each built the same way, using the same materials and with the same kind of tools.

Nearly 2000 parts later, each individually handcrafted from original drawings or digitised data from the actual Team Car, and not to mention 40,000 hours of effort, the first is ready. Or should I say the 13th? The black Blower you see here is what they call Car Zero, a test-and-development prototype that will be kept alongside the real Team Car for all time. It comes in gloss-black paint because the interior and exterior colours are just about the only thing over which a customer has free choice. It also has LED lights mounted fore and aft, an inelegant but entirely necessary requirement of its testing regime. Otherwise, it’s the same as Birkin’s car in every significant regard.

It’s the work of both the in-house Bentley Mulliner personal commissioning department and a small groupof external suppliers, including Israel Newton and Sons, which was responsible for the hand-formed, hot-rivetted heavy-gauge steel chassis. If you’ve not heard of it, don’t be surprised: this is a company that has spent the past 200 years making boilers for steam locomotives and therefore has unsurpassed knowledge of traditional forging and shaping of hot metal.

Parking Blowers old and new next to each other is a surreal experience. You look from one to the other and try to spot the differences. They are there: the pedals of the Team Car have been worn smooth in places from decades of double-declutch gearchanges and its dials are perhaps faded somewhat after 90 years of roaming around in the sunshine. But the details are perfect, right down to the lap counter on the dash. This isn’t a Bentley part but a replica of the one appropriated from an inn somewhere in France in 1930 as the team drove the race cars to Le Mans. It’s actually designed for keeping the score in bar games. The original was dismantled, the secrets of its operation revealed and put back together again, which is how there’s an identical copy on Car Zero.

Sitting behind the enormous wheel, looking at that haphazard splat of dials, it feels more like a vintage biplane than a car. Starting it isn’t hard, just complicated. First turn the hidden cut-out key to activate the car, then flick on the fuel pumps (you can still pump the petrol from the enormous tank to the engine by hand if you choose). Then turn on both magnetos, which generate sparks for the engine mechanically, not electrically, so once the car is running, it doesn’t need a battery. Then you retard the ignition on the steering wheel-mounted lever and finally thumb the big starter button. If the engine is warm, it fires up at once.

This is a thumping great lump of motor, each of its four cylinders displacing more than a litre of capacity, but so too is it surprisingly modern. Think twin-spark ignition, overhead camshafts and four valves per cylinder are all relatively modern innovations? Bentley had them on his cars not just 90 but 100 years ago. And if 240bhp at 4200rpm seems rather modest by modern standards, be advised that it was approximately 20 times more powerful than the motor in a typical car of the period, such as an Austin Seven. So think something over 2000bhp today.

It’s brave – very brave – of Bentley to even let me near this car. It’s not its £1 million-plus value or any difficulty with operating it that’s the problem, as I’ve been blessed beyond imagining to have been trusted with the actual Team Car a number of times. The issue is that the car is right at the start of its development and feels raw even by vintage Bentley standards. The bite point of the clutch is too high, the throttle linkage somewhat tricky and the brakes still bedding in. These cars are always a challenge, with their resolutely synchro-free gearboxes and reversed accelerator and brake positions, but this one requires even greater than usual concentration. But these are typical teething troubles, no more or less, and to be expected.