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September 12, 2007
Check out my piece on Bentleys this Saturday. The story is pegged to a 1924 3-liter green beauty owned by Dr. Paul Sydlowski of Bristol.
He has restored and tweaked the monster into the kind of racer that dominated European race tracks in the late 1920s, most notably the Le Mans 24-hour Endurance Race which the marque won in 1924, 1927, 1928, 1929 and 1930.
Sydlowski is the kind of collector who not only likes to drive his vintage cars, but to thrash them, as we say in Britain. On a 60-mile jaunt through southern Rhode Island on a recent sunny afternoon, he showed Journal photographer Steve Szydlowski and myself what his car can do when pushed, thundering along at 60-70 mph and taking corners at incredible speeds.
The fact is these cars were built to be fast tourers and then tweaked for the race track. With someone like Sydlowski, a very experienced driver who races his car on tracks and takes it on rallies around the world, at the wheel the car really shows off its stuff.
As he says, he loves the Bentley because it keeps up with modern traffic. No pottering along the road in a Model A at 35 mph for him; that kind of driving he describes as being "a menace to yourself and everyone else."
The mechanical genius behind these gorgeous machines was Walter Owen "W.O." Bentley who developed the engines following work on railroads, motorcycles and airplanes. Indeed, it was his engine that powered the famed Sopwith Camel biplane that fought the German Fokker triplane of Red Baron fame in WWI.
But he is mostly remembered for the fabulous cars his company produced from 1921 to 1931, when the company was bought out by Rolls-Royce.
Happily, Rolls kept the marque alive as the sportier counterpoint to its luxury cars and in 1998 Bentley was acquired by Volkswagen which has revamped the marque, creating some of the finest luxury sports cars in the world.
And VW has even brought the marque back to Le Mans where Bentley interrupted Audi's dominace over the last eight years to win the legendary race in 2003.
As I said, my piece on Sydlowski's 1924 Bentley will run this Saturday. See you there!
- Peter C.T. Elsworth
Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth 
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