My Bentley " S 2 " is probably my pride
and joy. I bought her in 1989 from a gentleman in Farnborough. I have
spent a lot of its earnings on the car including a new gearbox at £2,800.00
together with a complete re-spray and re-chrome.
The car was built in 1961 and originally belonged
to a Scottish Laird who had it fitted with electric windows to the front
but wind up windows to the rear, He did not want his children playing with
the windows ! It starred in the "Inspector Morse" series in
1990. Locally, I was asked to take that grand old man of Aldershot, Mr.
Arthur English, through the Borough when he received the Freedom of the
Borough in 1992. I was allowed to parade through the streets of the town
with specially made registration plates . Needless to say they read ARTHUR
1 and were presented to Mr. English at the end of the parade.
The car itself was a continuing development of the
" S " and "Cloud " motor cars. The need for more power
and sophistication by our cousins in the U S A resulted in a 6,250 litre V
8 engine with a top speed in excess of 120 m.p.h. Her body length is 17'
8'’ and she has power steering. The official Performance figures for
this type of car are as follows :
Standing quarter mile in 18.2 seconds : 0 to 50
mph in 8.3 seconds : 0 to 60 mph 11.5 seconds ; 0 to 100 mph in 38.5
seconds . It weighs 4,552 lbs. One disadvantage of the combustion unit was
that the spark plugs are under the exhaust manifold. This means that in
order to change the plugs you have to remove an under-wing panel and the
front wheel on either side of the car. She proceeds at the rate of some 11
miles per gallon and her oil consumption is negligible. The gearbox is
American and is described as a Rolls Royce G M Hydramatic four step box. .
The photographers will tell you that the detail of a white wedding dress
is better accentuated using a darker coloured car as the background.
