BENTLEY YW 5758—THE RIGHT STUFF PART 1

THE ONLINE CLASSIC & SPORTS CAR HAS A FASCINATING (and extensive) piece about a particular 1927 Bentley 4 1.2-Litre. “History Repeating” describes Bentley plated YW 5758 having a rich competition record including the company’s fabled 1929 Le Mans 1-4 finish. Simon Hucknall’s article has a wonderful array of photos, several displaying the car’s racing career, others exhibiting fine details of this classic.

What follows in Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow are tidbits gleaned from Hucknall’s article.

This and other images from Classic & Sports Cars.

WO’s Thoughts, Initially: Hucknall shares Walter Owen Bentley’s thoughts just before the inaugural Le Mans in 1923: “I think the whole thing in crazy. Nobody’ll finish. Cars aren’t designed to stand that sort of strain for 24 hours.”

But a Bentley did more than finish this inaugural race; it earned a joint fourth place. Hucknall observes, “Seven years and five outright works wins later, Bentley’s Le Mans legacy was entrenched.”

The 4 1/2-Litre. “Advanced for its day,” Hucknall recounts, “the 4½ Litre’s 4398cc monobloc ‘four’, like the 6½ Litre, used an overhead cam to actuate four valves per cylinder, when almost all rivals had sidevalve engines with half as many valves. Standard output was 110bhp, but in competition guise, as in ‘our’ car, it made 130bhp.”

“The larger engine,” Hucknall continues, “made it a more biddable machine on road and track versus the 3 Litre, and in standard tune power increased by 40bhp over the older car. So you can understand WO’s consternation about force-feeding it with more power.”

Not a Blower Bentley. With Villiers superchargers residing between the front chassis arms, Blower Bentleys certainly had panache. But WO was never a fan. And, as Hucknall notes, “From the off, the ‘Blower’ Bentley was a hugely quick car. But it never won a race.“

Media Hijack. Also Hucknall discusses “Bentley Boys.” Others (including me) have used the moniker to describe the likes of Woolf Barnato, Dudley Benjafield, Sir Henry “Tim” Birken, et al. However, Hucknall says, “the name was originally coined for the works mechanics, but hijacked by the media to describe the drivers.”

A fitted lap counter is part of YW 5758’s instrumentation.  

Le Mans Regulations Of Yore. “Le Mans Tops and Suitcases” here at SimanaitisSays described how in 1924-1927, “the event began with drivers sprinting across the track to their cars, erecting the cars’ rudimentary weather protection of the era and then speeding off. What’s more, these tops had to survive 20 laps of racing. Also, though the cars didn’t carry suitcases per se, they ran with ballast equally the weight of passengers.”

A tonneau cover hides YW 5758’s typically unused rear passenger seats.

Tomorrow in Part 2, we learn that, unlike passengers Le Mans ballast shouldn’t squirm. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024