4d, most motorists could only dream of driving the Bentley
Continental. By comparison, the new Ford Popular of 1953 cost
£390: roughly one car for the price of 20. Ownership was restricted
to an economic elite: Agnelli, Guinness, Embiricos, Onassis,
Niarchos, Mavroleon, Jack Barclay, H.I.M. the Shahanshah of Iran,
Rockefeller, Prince Frederick of Prussia, Sir Alfred McAlpine and
the Emperor Bao Dai—members of what was becoming known
as the jet set, men who headed countries, corporations and royal
dynasties. During the early 1950s, you could not consider yourself
a millionaire playboy without a Bentley Continental.F
or that sort of money, purchasers expected
performance and they certainly got it: a raised
compression ratio, specially modified exhaust
(responsible for the R-Type’s distinctive note) and other
modifications, coaxed what was, for the time, remarkable
power from the six-cylinder, 4,566cc engine. It was able to cover
a quarter of a mile from a standing start in 19.5 seconds. “It brings
Bentley back to the forefront of the world’s fastest cars,” carolled
one reviewer. “The acceleration from rest to 100mph has not been
approached by any other saloon car in Autocar’s experience and
has been equalled by very few open sports cars.” Even seasoned
men of the world were impressed. “We glided around the course
doing 120mph down the Hunaudières straight,” recalled Prince
Sadruddin Aga Khan of his first encounter with a fastback
Continental at Le Mans in 1953. “I was so mesmerised by the
speedometer that I hardly noticed the admiring crowds who had
obviously never seen a touring car perform in this way before.”
The Continental’s performance was such that special tyres
CO were required: normal six ply tyres lasted for about 20 miles, justUR
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10 minutes motoring at the car’s quoted top speed of 120mph. The
DS19 also used advanced tyre technology: Citroën was then owned
by Michelin and the DS was designed to run on new radial tyres.B
ut rather than the tyres, it was the striking appearance
of the DS and the Continental that must have made
such an impact on road users of the 1950s. Each car is
characterised by a long sloping back and the extremes to which
the DS took its aerodynamic sculpting has often been described
as a teardrop design, although Graham Hull, chief stylist of Rolls-
Royce and Bentley from 1984 to 2001 would later describe it as
“a streamlined egg”.
Hull can be forgiven for being partisan, especially as the
R-Type Continental was an achingly beautiful car. As gorgeous
at rest as at speed: its raised front wings swept across the doors
before tucking neatly into the rear “haunch”. Moreover, this
was beauty with purpose: it was the first Bentley to benefit from
experiments conducted in the wind-tunnel at parent company
Rolls-Royce’s aeronautical test facility. The car’s comparatively
small front improved aerodynamic performance while the rear
fins dramatically improved the car’s stability at high speed.
“Much more could have been done than was done,” said
Bentley’s chief projects engineer Ivan Evernden of the pioneering
wind-tunnel work, “but the purpose of the exercise was to reduce
the aero drag of an orthodox car and not to make a space capsule
for an astronaut”—in some measure anticipating the space age
remarks that the DS would attract.
Indeed, so striking and so similar were the cars’ profiles that
it has been suggested in Malcolm Bobbitt’s book on the Citroën
DS that its lineage includes some Bentley DNA. Just before theWHEELS OF
FORTUNE
Clockwise
from top left:
Walter Owen
Bentley, founder
of Bentley
Motors; 1954
Bentley R-Type
Continental
Sports Saloon
interior; 1954
R-Type rear;
new Continental
GT rear; new
Continental
interior; new
Continental
exterior;
1954 R-Type
exteriorSEPTEMBER 2019 VANITY FAIR EN ROUTE
09-19Citrone-Bentley.indd 45 17/07/2019 14:11