Legendary Blower Bentley makes history at Bonhams auction

  • Aug 6, 2012
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One of the greatest of all Bentleys, the special single-seater Blower Bentley made by Sir Tim Birkin for success at Brooklands went under the hammer recently and came up with the honour of being the highest price ever garnered by a Bentley at auction! The massive and butch red-coloured Blower Bentley made history at the Bonhams auction held on the first day of this year's Goodwood Festival of Speed when it was acquired by an unknown buyer bidding via telephone for a sum of Pounds 5,041,500 making it the priciest Bentley ever in history!

Blower Bentley single-seater shell

Tim Birkin, one of the original Bentley boys and a ferociously competitive soul to boot wanted a crack at not just winning the Le Mans 24 Hours but also the Brooklands 500 with special emphasis on setting the outright lap record on the Byfleet oval’s fearsome banked but bumpy Outer Circuit. He knew that the standard 4.5-litre four-cylinder was not capable of winning consistently thanks to the heavy car not having the power in the face of newer competition.

Supercharging then was the way to go and Birkin first drew in supercharging expert Amherst Villiers to design and develop a special supercharger for the Bentley. Next he got fellow driver and South African diamond heir Woolf Barnato (then also the financial backer to Bentley Motors) to bless the project before finally dazzling the Hon. Dorothy Wyndham Paget to put up the money to finance the race campaign. The latter was needed because W O Bentley didn’t care much for supercharging and so didn’t want to do much with the car and this parallel race effort anyway.

Bentley 4.5-litre engine

This special car first carried a canvas body stretched over a spring-steel lattice frame structure. It was painted blue but it caught fire during the 1929 Brooklands 500 Miles Race. Undeterred, Birkin turned to Reid A Railton who designed a new body using aluminium beaten into the form intended by A P Compton & Co. The car was now painted red and all of a sudden it seemed the fortunes changed.

Birkin won some great races at Brooklands with this car till early 1933 and some of them were the stuff of legend. He also set the Outer Circuit lap record, which was so dear to his heart. Unfortunately, in early 1933 while racing at Tripoli in Libya, Birkin suffered burns that saw him afflicted by septicaemia and he died in July that year.

1929 Brooklands 500 Miles Race

The car remained with the Hon. Dorothy Paget, unused till it was sold to a Bentley enthusiast who converted it back to a two-seater! Thankfully he retained the single-seater shell and from a progression of owners it finally landed in the George Daniels collection. Daniels is renowned as one of the world’s greatest horologists and he was a long time Bentley enthusiast.

On his death, his entire collection went under the hammer, the famous auction house of Bonhams entrusted with the sale, which also included another Daniels Bentley that had an India connect. This was Maharaja of Bhavnagar’s 1929 Bentley 4.5-litre four-seat tourer, which realised £471,900! And if that wasn’t all, a complete Bentley 4.5-litre engine in Daniel’s possession went for £59,740!

Mega is the only word that comes to mind!

Blower Bentley on display
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TOP TEN CARS AT THE AUCTION

If the price fetched by the Birkin Blower Bentley seems a princely fortune, think again for it barely got it into the top ten of some great cars ever to go under the auctioneer’s hammer. Here is a list of the top ten cars at auction over the years.

1.    1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa Prototype - $16.39 million

At the 2011 Gooding & Company’s Monterey auction, this Testa Rossa, chassis number 0666 TR created history by being the most expensive car ever sold at an auction anywhere in the world. Natural this, because it was the first of the Testa Rossa’s, and one with a rich racing history.

2.    1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa – $12.2 million

This breathtakingly beautiful pontoon-fendered TR (one of just 22 built) was sold by RM Auctions at its Leggenda e Passione event held in Maranello in 2008 and it also has a rich racing history writ large in its CV.

3.    1961 Ferrari GT SWB California Spyder - $10.9 million

Once the property of Hollywood actor James Coburn, this car was also one of the other big grossers at the 2008 RM Auctions Leggenda e Passione do at Maranello. Noted British radio jockey Chris Evans made the winning bid for this car.

4.    1931 Duesenberg Model J LWB Coupe - $10.34 million

Crafted for a wealthy eccentric collector with no amount of money being spared on this ultra special coupe, one of a handful built on the long wheelbase Duesenberg J chassis and with just five owners from new, this Duesy illustrates what other special examples of this marque can command if ever they come up for auction!

5.    1931 Bugatti Royale Kellner Coupe - $9.7 million

Ettore Bugatti’s magnum opus, the Kellner Coupe is one of just six Royales built and curiously the only one ever to come up for auction. That it garnered a record $9.7 million at a Christies’ auction in London in the year 1987 makes it all the more special. I am sure that were it come up for auction today it would hammer every record for top dollar at auction.

6.    1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K Spezial Roadster - $9.68 million

Mercedes-Benz made just 25 of the 540K Spezial Roadsters and of this lot only a handful sported the long tail style with a covered spare tyre on the rear deck. On top of that just three such cars are known to be in existence and such cars rarely come on the auctioner’s block, most being sold by direct sale. This car was sold at RM Auction’s 2011 Monterey event.

7.    1962 Ferrari 330 TRI/LM Testa Rossa - $8.2 million

Very significant model from the Prancing Horse in that it was the last ever front engine Ferrari race car driven by the great American-Belgian duo of Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien at Le Mans in 1962.  Once again it was one of the highlights of the 2007 RM Auctions event held in Ferrari’s assembly line at Maranello!

8.    1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K Spezial Roadster - $ 8.2 million

Like the other Spezial Roadster, this is one of the 25 Spezials of the 406 540Ks built. Owned by F1 ringmaster Bernie Ecclestone, it sold at the 2007 RM Auctions ‘Automobiles of London’ event at Battersea for what then was a record price for a Mercedes-Benz.

9.    1929 Mercedes-Benz 38/250 SSK - $7.44 million

Bonhams sold this prized car, one of just 33 built at its 2004 auction at Sussex, U.K. The fact that it was in original condition without having been ravaged by time or war and without any restoration meant it was a great find.

10. 1929 Birkin Supercharged ‘Blower’ Bentley - $7.34 million

The car that prompted this feature and the latest one to burst into the all time priciest cars at auction top ten, it made this amount at Bonhams sale at the 2012 Goodwood Festival of Speed last month. This exquisite one-of-a-kind Bentley racer also broke the record for the highest price ever achieved for a British car sold at an auction to date.

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