Bentley - The Cars From Crewe

by Rodney Steel. 242pp. 91/2″ x 81/4″.(Dalton Watson, Russell Chambers,The Piazza, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8AA. £39.95).

Dalton Watson is renowned for high-class books about high-grade cars, especially Rolls-Royce and Bentley, and this book nicely rounds out the record of the latter, dealing as it does, in copious pictures and full supporting text, with the MkVI, R-Type, S-Type, Types S2 and S3, T-series cars, and Mulsanne and 1984 Continentals. Not only that, but prototypes and experimental cars are included, and especially valuable to historians and other researchers will be the list of chassis numbers extending over 56 pages, giving engine numbers, registration numbers, delivery dates, body style, coachbuilder, and the name of the car’s first owner, for the R-types onwards.

I cannot think that anyone much cares who was the first owner of, for instance, a Ford Sierra 4×4! So this is a book to read and treasure and one which will be referred to down the years. As is becoming the custom, its quality is marred by the inclusion of advertisements. WB