By Nigel Wigmore

One of my earliest memories of the Bentley magic was standing on a bend at Silverstone racetrack watching a “Blower” disappear over the hill.

The distinctive, double bass boom of the Blower’s engine magically reverberated across my stomach muscles as it passed.

An even earlier memory is of a beautiful, golden-green, two-door Bentley Continental Coupé, the 1960s model with the handsome raked back, passing by me occasionally as I walked to school. (The picture of a modern Bentley added to this post – along with Bentley’s photograph of the Blower Bentley – actually shows a more up to date model which to my mind is not quite as spectacular as the 1960s Continental of my boyhood. Nevertheless the sumptuous Bentley Continental GT Speed Black Edition shown is a very handsome car.)

The Blower Bentley got its name from the supercharger mounted up front on the radiator to show the car meant business. It certainly did. This Bentley proved so reliable on the track that it nearly won Le Mans in 1928 and 1929. Continue reading →

By Nigel Wigmore

The chances are that many more of us will be taking a ride down reggae star Eddy Grant’s fabled Electric Avenue in the next decade.

Within the next 10 years — and remember that brings us perilously close to 2040, when our own government has called for an end to all sales of petrol- and diesel-powered cars — electric cars will be everywhere.

But that is nothing to sing about, I hear you say. What about the issues of mileage, range, the “woeful” current infrastructure of electric charging points, and the alleged burden on the National Grid? Continue reading →