Book
Review
Bentley Mk VI, Rolls-Royce Silver
Wraith, Silver Dawn & Silver Cloud, Bentley R Series
& S Series.
By Martyn Nutland, published by Veloce Publishing,
Dorchester UK.
This book is a reprint of a book published
ten years ago under the title, 'Rolls-Royce Silver
Wraith, Silver Dawn and Silver Cloud, Bentley Mk VI, R
Series & S Series'. According to the Publisher's
note, although the title has been altered, the text is
essentially unchanged.
While the Bentley Mk VI is the central
subject in this book, as the rather lengthy title
implies, it is a study of all the early post-war cars up
to and including the Silver Cloud III/S3 series. After
opening with an essentially brief outline of the social
and economic conditions in the UK after World War II, the
author describes the difficult environment in which the
Company made its decisions to re-engage in the production
of luxury motor cars. The history of the company and the
development of the small horse-power Rolls-Royce and the
Derby Bentleys are described in sufficient detail to give
the reader a good understanding of the Mk VI's
background, its place in the market and its basis for
development into the later models.
The mainly monochrome illustrations are of
good quality and serve to amplify the text as expected,
although I found the badly pixelated end plate pictures
disappointing, creating a poor first impression of the
book. Perhaps they were included for artistic rather than
illustrative effect. Fortunately these pictures are
repeated within the text in a much more highly defined
format so the initial impression was soon corrected.
Whilst many of the photos and brochure
extracts would be well known to devotees of the marques,
there were plenty that were new, at least to the
reviewer. These included some of the less usual (and
sometimes less elegant) coachbuilt saloons, and the
controversial Bentley 'Crewe Specials', based either on
Mk VI or 20/25 chassis. How pleasing that the author
illustrates and outlines the development of these cars,
without being drawn into the heated arguments about
whether or not they should ever have been built in the
first place.
The frequent appearance of Bentleys and
Rolls-Royces in the Monte Carlo and other rallies, races
and hill-climbs in the 1940's and 50's is often
overlooked in histories of the marques, but here it is
well documented and illustrated. Ostensibly such
participation was sponsored privately, but informal works
assistance did not appear to be far behind.
Purchase and ownership of these cars,
whether when they were new, or now, as highly usable
collectors' items is covered in detail, together with the
range of options available. These included the well-known
if now rare Radford Countryman conversions. However, I
think an error of syntax has crept into the text here
where
" after the arrival of the Austin Mini in
1959, (Radford) launched a 'twinning' programme whereby a
Bentley or Silver Cloud could be trimmed and finished in
exactly the same scheme as one of the baby cars, giving
the fortunate owners a liveried car for every
occasion."
Would you really want your new RR to have
only a red, white or blue paint job, together with
plastic upholstery and painted metal trim?
Whilst a number of books have been written
covering much more specifically, the historical,
commercial and technical aspects of the post-war cars
from Crewe, this book, by a dedicated Bentley driver,
gives a very good general and balanced picture of these
models. I recommend it not only to the hardened
enthusiast, but also to the potential buyer of one of
these cars and also to the general student of motoring
history.
Roy M Tilley,
Librarian and Technical Liaison
Officer.
Serious Motoring.
Many of our members believe in using their cars
regularly, rather then keeping them cosseted in
museums, and the older the car, and the more challenging
the conditions, the better they like it. And to prove the
point, below are photos of Scott Thomson's Phantom II
Continental 101RY and Michael Horman's Bentley Mark VI
B358MD taken recently at Mount Cook. Our thanks to Scott
and David Thomson for these photos.
