That’s right. After 90 years, the Bentley Blower is back. The prototype car, Car Zero took 40,000 hours to build, forming part of the Blower Continuation Series.
Bentley Mulliner are building 12 customer cars, which have all been sold, using old design drawings and tooling jigs that were used to build the original four Blowers built and raced by Sir Henry ‘Tim’ Birkin in the late 1920s.
1,846 individual parts were designed and hand crafted to create this new Blower. 230 of those parts are actually assemblies – one of which being the engine – taking the total part count to several thousand when fixings and interior trim parts are included. How do they make sure the new Blower is true to the original? Well, the team at Bentley deconstructed the the #2 Team Car owned by Bentley and laser scanned elements to create a complete CAD model.
The 4½-litre engine, originally designed by W.O Bentley himself, has been created with the expert support of specialists, featuring aluminium pistons, an overhead camshaft, four valves per cylinder and twin spark ignition – the renowned 4½-litre engine has been paired with a newly machined Amherst Villiers roots-type supercharger.
It will in doubt be interesting to see what it does to the values of the original Blowers as the subject of continuation series is a hot topic.
SCDW 