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Bentley Blower No.1

Bentley Blower No.1
Brooklands Battleship
Birkin Bentley 4½ Litre Blower.jpg
Constructor Sir Henry "Tim" Birkin
Designer(s) Sir Henry "Tim" Birkin, Clive Gallop, Amherst Villiers
Technical specifications
Chassis Steel-lattice ladder
Suspension (front) Semi-elliptic leaf springs, 17-inch (430 mm) drum brakes
Suspension (rear) Semi-elliptic leaf springs, 17-inch (430 mm) sdrum brakes
Length 4,380 mm (172 in)
Wheelbase 3,302 mm (130.0 in)
Engine 4,398 cc (268.4 cu in)
100 mm (3.9 in) bore/140 mm (5.5 in) stroke front mounted inline 4
Transmission 4 speed unsynchronized manual
Weight 1,625 kg (3,583 lb)
Competition history
Notable drivers Sir Henry "Tim" Birkin
Races F.Laps
1929 Brooklands 500 mile endurance Brooklands, 1931 137.96 miles per hour (222.03 km/h)

Bentley Blower No.1 is a racing car developed from the Bentley 4½ Litre by Sir Henry "Tim" Birkin to win the Le Mans twenty-four-hour race. The car was developed into its current form for racing at Brooklands.

In June 2012, the car was sold by Bonhams for £5,042,000 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, making it the most expensive British-built car sold.

In 1921 Sir Henry "Tim" Birkin turned to motor racing, competing a few races at Brooklands. Business and family pressure then forced him to retire from the tracks until 1927 when he entered a three litre Bentley for a six-hour race. For 1928 he acquired a 4½ litre car and after some good results decided to return to motor racing, very much against his family's wishes. Soon Birkin was one of the Bentley Boys, described as "the greatest Briton of his time" by W. O. Bentley. In 1928 Birkin entered the Le Mans race again, leading the first twenty laps until a jammed wheel forced him to drop back, finishing fifth. He won the race in 1929, racing the Speed Six as co-driver to Woolf Barnato.

If W. O. Bentley wanted a more powerful car he developed a bigger model, and the Speed Six was a huge car. Ettore Bugatti once referred to the Bentley as "the world's fastest lorry" ("Le camion plus vite du monde").

W.O. adhered to a strictly assertion that increasing displacement is always preferable to forced induction:

However, in the winter of 1926/7, chassis FR5189, a 3-litre car, was the first car fitted with a supercharger at the factory. Using a Roots-type blower over the front axle, it was unsuccessfully raced by May Cunliffe in 1927.


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