On 10th July 2019, Bentley will reach its Centenary year; a record achievement that must be celebrated for creating the worlds most iconic Grand Tourers; The British luxury brand is honouring decades of craftsmanship.
The very first prototype was created in a London mews to the remarkably powerful and exquisitely crafted cars driven globally today transforming the face of motoring still to this day.
W.O. Bentley founded Bentley Motors so as to “build a fast car, a good car, the best in its class” – the motto has remained at the heart of Bentley ever since.
It is not just the team at the Crewe factory that makes Bentley so astonishing. The drivers of the Bentleys produced has helped to take the cars to continued greater heights, beginning with the Bentley Boys and Bentley Girls of the 1920’s.
The Bentley story would not be the same without the exceptional talents of the team at Mulliner, Bentley personal commissioning service. To mark the Centenary, the Mullieners team have created a rare car as a tribute to Bentleys iconic founder.
Bentley Motors have released a short film ‘Together we are Extraordinary: The Story of Bentley Motors” to honour this achievement. You can view it here.
A very loyal customer of ours here at Laser Industries, is one of the leading Vintage Car Restorers specialising in Vintage Bentley, W.O Bentley, S Type Invicta and Lagonda. With over 30 years of experience in the Vintage Car Industry, David Ayre Cars Limited, uses laser cut components.
Over the past few years, David has fully restored a number of W.O 6.5 litre Vintage Bentleys which have achieved numerous rally successes including London to Cape Town, Peking to Paris and more recently the Bentley Alaskan Tour.
As a veteran and Vintage Bentley Owner and restorer, as well as a rally support and competitor, David Ayre Cars Limited prides themselves in world class knowledge, enthusiasm and expertise.
At present, David Ayre Cars Ltd is in the process of restoring the Banarto Hassan Special in time for a summer of fun.
The Barnato Hassan Special was built by Walter Hassan for Woolf Barnato in 1934. It was built on a narrow ladder chassis with a birdcage frame for the bodywork and a 6.5-litre Bentley engine. For the 1935 season the 6.5-litre engine was replaced with an 8-litre engine. The steering column was not centralised therefore the driver sat on the offside of the body.
It was built as a Brooklands Outer Circuit competitor with streamlining being an important factor to the build. The fuel used in the racer was 40% alcohol, 40% benzole and 20% Ethyl petrol. For many of the races the Barnato Hassan ran with only rear brakes. Also to be considered was the rough surface of the racing track, frequently this abrasive surface shredded the tread off the tyres.
Although the Barnato Hassan was driven by a number of well-known drivers in its time the most frequent and successful of these drivers was Oliver Bertram. He was a London barrister in his day job; he enjoyed driving many cars at Brooklands in his racing career.
In 1935 Oliver Bertram took the Barnato-Hassan-Special to the record-breaking lap speed of 142.60 mph. This 8-litre car engined vehicle was only ever beaten by the 24-litre aero-engined Napier-Railton, but only by 0.84 mph. These records will forever remain as Brooklands racing was halted with the outbreak of war.
Post war the vehicle was raced by its subsequent owners, the person that owned it the longest and campaigned it the most was Keith Schellenberg whom was also one of the competitors in the UKs first venture into the winter Olympic Games with a bobsleigh!
T7 Design has been a customer with Laser for a number of years, purchasing components from us to be used when manufacturing bespoke HVAC (heating, ventilation and cooling) systems. Their enthusiasm for designing the best products, coupled with 'in house' product development and manufacture allow T7 Design to produce high quality and cost effective solutions.
At Laser industries we have the capacity to produce laser cut components with precision in short timescales. We provide this service regularly to customers within the theatrical and set building industries. It is important for us at Laser Industries to work closely with our customers to ensure that the work is carried out in a time effective manner whilst ensuring the quality is second to none.
