Vintage History
Shortly after the armistice in 1919, WO Bentley, together with a group including Frank Burgess (formerly of Humber) and Harry Varley (formerly of Vauxhall), set about designing a high quality sporting tourer, for production under the name Bentley. Colonel Clive Gallop, who had been flying planes on the Western Front, which had been powered by WO's aero engines, joined the team, specifically designing the four valve-per-cylinder camshaft arrangement for the first engine. With his brother, HM, WO established the first 'Bentley Motors', that same year.
The first Bentley Motors Ltd was founded in 1919, and between then and 1931, W O created the motor cars which became a legend and remain prized and treasured possessions at the end of the twentieth century, something of which the intensely modest W O would have been surprised, but also very proud.
September 1919
WO Bentley and his small team fire up the prototype 3 litre engine in a small mews off Baker Street in central London. This engine had, for its time, an extremely advanced specification - four cylinders, single overhead camshaft, four valves per cylinder and twin-spark ignition via two magnetos (the latter introduced a little later). Upon receiving a complaint from a nearby nurse caring for a dying patient disturbed by the noise, one wag present commented "A happy sound to die to".
The chassis was the work of Frank Burgess, the ex-Humber designer who WO Bentley had met during the First World War, and recognised as an engineer thinking along the same lines as himself. The first completed chassis, EXP 1, was undertaking test runs by January 1920.