Sir Henry Birkin's Blower Bentley: A Brooklands Legend

The Blower-4½ single-seater Bentley with which the late Sir Henry Birkin twice broke the Brooklands outer-circuit lap record was very much in evidence when I was a regular visitor to the Track. Its appearance raised anticipation to high levels, because it was one of the fastest cars racing, effectively taking the place of the legendary aero-engined monsters of an earlier decade. To see the slight figure of the Baronet taking this long, slim, blue (later red) Bentley round the bankings was indeed exciting, his polka-dot scarf streaming out behind his helmet and the big car snaking viciously over the bumps. From which it can be seen that I was an avid admirer of this combination of man and machine and used to watch it in most of its races.

The last appearance of this very fast and successful Brooklands car was when Birkin beat John Cobb by 0.8sec in a match race in 1932, won at 124.33mph. By then Birkin was estimated to have done more than 50 laps of Brooklands in it at 135mph or more and had twice broken the lap-record with it. Sir Henry died in 1933 and surprisingly the Bentley was never raced again before the war, and Birkin’s patron Dorothy Paget did not sell it. Sir Henry had said it was an extremely difficult car to drive fast so perhaps there were no takers.

In 1939, however, the late Peter Robertson-Roger charmed the car’s titled owner into parting with it, and later ‘Rusty’ Russ-Turner bought it. After using it for a while in modified two-seater form, he refitted the single-seater body. Now the car looks very decently original and is on its original UU 5871 registration. It is raced in VSCC, BDC, and other events and used on the road in its old Brooklands guise.

Russ-Turner has spent a vast amount of time and money on restoring the blower 4½ track car and it was a great honour when he invited me to drive it. When we arrived at his Sussex cottage, there on the lawn was the car I had come down to drive and I lost little time in going out in it, paced by Russ-Turner’s open Bentley Corniche. The four-spoke steering wheel is very big, so there were some gymnastics to get both legs beneath it. Seated, the long much-louvred bonnet stretches purposefully ahead and you are confronted by a magnificent array of dials and controls, with a pull-out knob below which frees the reverse stop on the gear-lever should one need to travel backwards. Lower down under this crowded dashboard are a horn-push, Ki-gass tank pressuriser, a hand throttle, and the glass-bowl oil drip-feed for the rear supercharger bearing.

The body, although a single-seater, is off-set, so there is quite a lot of space on one’s left. Behind the red bucket seat the bulkhead is in the original blue paint, with a Brooklands admission label and a carefully preserved Scrutineer’s ticket mounted on it. Even now I have not exhausted the list, because the cockpit floor presents a battery master switch, a brake-adjuster knob, a long plug spanner, and a Firemaster Fury fire extinguisher. Rusty has made few concessions to road motoring, apart from the obvious items among those mentioned, and the brakes are still cable operated. Somewhat over-awed, I pressed out the clutch, which has very little movement and feels solid, pressed the starter button, eased in first gear with the outside lever and prepared to go motoring! Being conscious that I was privileged to be driving a one-off, very valuable and quite irreplaceable car, and not wishing to write off both the Bentley and the Corniche in one big shunt, I drove very sedately.

There was no need for this, however, because the brakes work exceptionally well, the equal of today’s hydraulic brakes, so that one is never conscious that there is nearly two tons of motor car to control, and it steers easily and rides very comfortably. But do not imagine that it is in any way dull! Depress the central accelerator and dramatic things happen. The acceleration is exceptionally good even in top gear, in which I satisfied myself that 3200rpm, nearly 100mph, comes up very easily indeed, the Bentley running straight as an arrow. In Birkin’s time the car was capable of 145mph.

“…bursts of exhilarating acceleration accompanied by the engine roar and crackle of the exhaust”

The long polished brake lever, outboard of the stubby gear lever, is easy to reach and just about as effective as using the pedal. Only a touch of throttle is needed when double-declutching from top into third and the gear-change is quite easy to accomplish, while the upward change from second into third is one of the most satisfying I have experienced — I found I would snatch my way into second at the approach of a roundabout even though not necessary simply for the sheer pleasure of going back into third!

Looking ahead over the exciting bonnet I was not really aware of the length of tail behind me; but in traffic it is reassuring to know that the rear-view mirror gives a reasonable view behind. The typical tangy note from the Brooklands exhaust system, the other fascinating noises as the needle of the blower gauge swept upwards, and the great waves of heat which soon engulfed me added to the excitement of this memorable drive. No wonder passers-by look with interest at one’s swift passage! Traffic was heavy on the hot August day but the Bentley intended for Brooklands proved entirely manageable. I had been instructed either to open or shut the throttle and not to trail it as part-throttle soots the plugs. So, on these congested roads it was mostly a case of bursts of exhilarating acceleration, accompanied by the roar of the engine and crackle of the exhaust, or slowing under the influence of the brakes with their big, deeply ribbed drums…

Incidentally, my drive on the road in this single-seater was really quite appropriate, because Gallop used to drive it thus from Welwyn to Brooklands. With rear-wheel brakes only, he must have concentrated pretty hard…

Towards the end of the run, when a traffic jam brought me to rest, the heat did rise towards 90degC and I duly switched in the fan. Otherwise, no drama. But it was very satisfying and I am indebted to the Bentley’s owner for the experience. I have now tried two of the Brooklands lap-record cars, as the Hon Patrick Lindsay allowed me to briefly sample the Napier-Railton at Silverstone…

Taken from Motor Sport, October 1973