Bentley is a brand of British luxury vehicles that has been around for 105 years. WO Bentley was the founder and established his company in Cricklewood, north London, in 1919.
These victories were all the time underfunded and attracted investor Woolf Barnato, a successful heavyweight boxer who knew some wealthy automobile enthusiasts, later often called the Bentley Boys, who were in a position to keep the corporate afloat.
The Bentley Boys were a tight-knit group of playboys and racers within the Twenties and Thirties and were all the time ready for a race. However, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 proved an excessive amount of for Bentley and Rolls-Royce took control in November 1931.
From 1931 to 2004, all Bentley and Rolls-Royce cars used the identical chassis and Rolls-Royce engines. In fact, there was a time within the Nineteen Sixties when the 2 vehicles were similar apart from the grill and hood ornaments.
Our featured automotive on this issue is a 1934 3.5 liter four-seat Bentley roadster. This was the primary recent Bentley model after the corporate was taken over by Rolls-Royce. This automotive was first sold recent on the Paris Motor Show in 1934.
Alamo resident Gordon Johnson purchased this vehicle about five years ago. Originally a farm boy from Iowa, Johnson knows a thing or two about machines.
“It was in sad shape,” Johnson said of the automotive, which he later learned once belonged to a famous musician Roy Orbison. “A door wouldn't close, some things didn't work, such as an automatic pressure pedal that oils all wear points, a common feature of luxury cars of the era.”
When he saw this potentially beautiful automotive that needed some work and care, he told the dealer he desired to buy it. All those years of repairing agricultural machinery should have began.
“I found this car and wanted to have something to do with it – there was no logical economics to that decision,” Johnson said. “I bought the car at Fantasy Junction in Emeryville.”
He later drove the automotive home just because it gave up. One of the 2 carburetors was broken, so Johnson took the automotive to his mechanic, Larry Anderson, who took care of that and a number of other other mechanical problems.
The technically expert owner has done quite a lot of work on this Bentley himself. He commissioned the unique paint job and had the period-accurate interior designed by Ken Nemanic, who has worked on many high-quality collector cars.
“But I went and helped him sometimes.”
The body of this Bentley was built by the famous French coachbuilder Jacques Kellner, who was a member of the French underground through the Second World War. On March 21, 1942, he was tied to a post and shot by Nazi soldiers.
Johnson is greater than a collector – he’s a perfectionist collector. He has sold some classic vehicles, but seems to enjoy finding high-end vehicles that need quite a lot of work and making them perfect.
He's pretty good at it, as six of the eight vehicles he owned were invited to compete within the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance automotive show.
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