Life imitating art, art imitating life

Back at Crewe, however, by the mid-1950s Rolls-Royce and Bentley knew the old architecture had reached the end of the road. A new car was essential. After the kind of thorough, painstaking concept work the company excelled at, the decision was taken, perhaps surprisingly, to return once more to a body-on-frame layout.

John Blatchley, then chief designer, also knew the design language had to change. The new bodies would be pressed steel with aluminium doors and hatches, making the sharp edges of earlier designs impractical. Passenger accommodation had to grow substantially. And power would initially come from the final evolution of the company’s straight-six, simply because nothing more modern was ready, even though that engine could trace its origins, bore centres and all, back to the 20hp first seen in 1922. That all changed in 1959 with the launch of S2 (and its predecessor retrospectively becoming known as the S1), when the then brand new Rolls-Royce and Bentley V8 made its debut – an engine whose longevity I’ve covered here previously.

Which brings us back to me.

Fresh from a role as Group Head of Research for the VW Group and tasked with developing solutions five, 10, even 20 years into the future, I suddenly found myself responsible for an engine already approaching its 50th birthday: the Crewe V8. Those engines were built to last and in more ways than one. Under Brian Gush’s leadership, a dedicated powertrain team was already developing its next generation. I was driving prototypes of future iterations almost daily. It felt only right that I should also live with one of the earliest examples. That alone defined the first criterion: the car had to be an S2.

If you’re wondering, an S3 was never an option. I just could never warm to the twin headlamps squeezed in beside the grille.

Next came colour. The S-Type had been designed for two-tone paintwork, and I wanted the same for mine. That might sound simple, but anyone who has ever tried to apply a two-tone scheme to a car not designed for it will know how awkward the transitions can be. Blatchley’s surfaces were made for it.

That still left the question of which colours. Some period combinations such as dark green over light green with green leather, or dark grey over light grey with black, simply felt too sombre. There was also the matter of longevity. Paint technology of the time was not built to last half a century.

Which leads to a short digression.

By the mid-1950s, Rolls-Royce and Bentley still supplied rolling chassis to coachbuilders, but that business was already in sharp decline. The ‘standard steel’ saloon body had become the dominant product. These bodies were nothing like the precision stampings we expect today. Before painting, every panel was laboriously finished – sanded repeatedly and filled with lead. Panel gaps were adjusted the same way. To achieve a flawless surface, as many as 20 layers of primer and paint were applied. Marketing later spun this necessity into a virtue, extolling the quality of ‘20 coats of paint’, though in truth modern processes can achieve superior results with far fewer layers. The philosophy remains; the methods have changed.

During my search, I accumulated scale models of various kinds. The most influential was a Franklin Mint 1:24 metal model, long out of production, finished in Garnet over Silver Sand – a deep red over a warm, gold-tinged metallic. I was also drawn to grey over blue, elegant yet austere, though ultimately too cold. Light grey over dark grey was beautifully proportioned, but emotionally bleak.

What I could not abide were the all-white cars re-sprayed for use in ‘the wedding trade’. This prejudice was reinforced when a supplier in the US once chauffeured us in a completely white Bentley S1 with faux-leopard upholstery, an experience I’d be delighted to forget.

Having exhausted every modern search channel, the answer arrived via the most traditional medium imaginable: a small, poorly photographed advert in the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts’ Club magazine. A grainy driveway photo. Twenty-five words of description. And what appeared to be Garnet over Silver Sand.

I rang the seller from an airport lounge on my way to a US motor show. He sounded decent. We agreed to meet when I returned. On my arrival back in the UK, I called again. He confessed he had only ever bought cars, never sold one, and asked, quite genuinely, whether he should come to me or I to him. I suggested, if it were convenient, that he visit my place. To avoid over-preparation, I asked if he could come the following morning.

At 10.30am the next day, the S2 rolled up the gravel drive of my old farmhouse. I knew instantly it was the one.

I hadn’t told him what I did for a living, but during the test drive I admitted I was Chief Engineer at Bentley Motors. To sweeten matters, I offered him a tour of the factory. Helen at the gate waved us through, we looked around, then drove back.

We agreed to have the car independently valued by an expert recommended by the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts’ Club. I paid for the valuation and the deal was done.

A few weeks later, my wife and I drove up to York in a modern Continental GT and returned in convoy in Bentleys old and new, to Crewe.

Shortly afterwards, another overseas trip loomed. In the meantime, the S2 was inspected by Bentley’s press and special vehicles team, because on the very day of my return we were due to drive it to Bergerac for the Concours d’Élégance organised by Claude Lobo, the former head of design at Ford of Europe and father of New Edge.

The journey itself was the point. My friend the late Phil Llewellyn and his wife Beth joined Alexandra and me. Two Bentleys set off: an Arnage T with 500 horsepower, and its great-grandfather with 180. Both performed faultlessly. The S2 attracted more attention and proved just as comfortable, air conditioning aside. The Arnage, however, used only around 60 per cent of the fuel, despite having more than twice the power. That, in a sentence, is 50 years of engineering progress.

At Bergerac, the S2 formed part of a Bentley line-up in a year when the marque was the featured guest.

Only then did the ‘life imitating art’ element emerge.

With help from the Bentley Drivers Club, Bentley Owners Club and Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts’ Club and access to original build records, I discovered the car had left the factory in dark green over light green, with a green interior. It was originally sold to a Welsh steel magnate who used it with a chauffeur during the week and drove it himself at weekends. After 10 years, it went to a Japanese collector, then eventually returned to the UK, where I became only its fourth owner in nearly 60 years.

In Japan, the colour was changed to Garnet over Silver Sand. It seems the collector had been inspired by the same Franklin Mint model that had captured my imagination years earlier.

At Bentley, we were keen to keep our heritage alive. As part of this, we partnered with Minichamps to produce exceptionally accurate 1:18 scale models of key historic cars from our collection, now curated by Mike Sayer. One glaring omission remained: the S-Type. Minichamps asked if they could borrow my S2 for two days to laser-scan it.

I agreed.

They produced superb models in both 1:18 and 1:43 scale, finished, naturally, in Garnet over Silver Sand.

So the Franklin Mint model inspired the colour of my real car; Minichamps then used the real car to create a model in that same colour. Life imitated art, and art promptly returned the favour.

Whenever I take the Old Lady out (she lives mostly in a museum these days), it’s always a special occasion. And every time, I think of that art-life-art loop.