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Proper motor!


bentwaters81tfw

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Wow, at forty thousand hours to built the initial prototype, this isn’t going to be cheap to buy! Better start saving now, and hope my 14year old Ford Focus can last just that bit longer....

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30 minutes ago, rs2man said:

Presumably , being new builds , they will not be road legal in the UK  . Seems an awful lot of money for something you can only use on a racetrack. 

 

Indeed, and I've been wondering the same about many of these 'continuation' cars and also various low volume production upgraded classic cars.  The DVLA can be painful enough when trying to reregister cars of this era which are genuine but not on the system due to having been in storage, courtesy of a certain old car club seemingly signing off brand new recreations as being the same age as the real thing, for registration purposes.  As a result there is no way they will allow the former except via the appropriate low volume type approval (BIVA / IVA), which a car of this era simply will not pass for a multitude of reasons.  In the case of the latter, the rules for maintaining vehicle identity when modifying (& thus avoiding the need for BIVA etc) are very clear, and have been in place since 1997.

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9 minutes ago, Paul H said:

 

Indeed, and I've been wondering the same about many of these 'continuation' cars and also various low volume production upgraded classic cars.  The DVLA can be painful enough when trying to reregister cars of this era which are genuine but not on the system due to having been in storage, courtesy of a certain old car club seemingly signing off brand new recreations as being the same age as the real thing, for registration purposes.  As a result there is no way they will allow the former except via the appropriate low volume type approval (BIVA / IVA), which a car of this era simply will not pass for a multitude of reasons.  In the case of the latter, the rules for maintaining vehicle identity when modifying (& thus avoiding the need for BIVA etc) are very clear, and have been in place since 1997.

Interestingly , there was an article in this month's Classic and Sports Car about a company which specialises in modifying 'continuation' cars in order to get them through the approval and registration process so they can be used on the road . All the parts they change are returned to the owner in a custom-built fitted case so they can be returned to standard if required . Clearly costs an arm and a leg and I would think the Blower Bentleys will be too far away from modern regulations for such a process to be possible . Far more suited to Aston DB4GT or Lightweight E-Type .

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Haven't seen that, as I've not been able to go to any shops that sell a decent selection of old car mags* since the start of lockdown...  but sounds interesting!  I do know that once IVA is done, then the clock is reset as far as the 8 point rules regarding modifying are concerned, so guess that it is therefore possible to then undo most of the annoying stuff afterwards.  However, even '60s stuff can struggle with IVA, but as you say, they stand a much greater chance of passing.  Emmissions may still be an issue though, but on that topic, about ten years ago amusingly my 1967 Volvo was put through the emissions test during the MOT for some reason, despite cars of that age being visual smoke test only.  I guess the tester was on autopilot.  Not that it mattered, as it still passed the 1992 pre catalytic converter emission levels, despite the intergalactic mileage & the twin SUs being pretty worn.

 

*Along with C&S, The Automobile is my other favourite old car read.  Whilst I really should subscribe, I rarely get the time to actually read them 🙁

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At the quoted price in the DM article of £1.5 million, these cars seem like a good buy, for what they are, to me, even if not able to be daily drivers. I'd guess at least some of them will be exported & in time, some will likely change hands for even larger sums. They do look a bit nice I reckon. :)

Steve.

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Rant time !!!!!!

 

I think that the appeal of the blower Bentley is a visual thing, they just look so brutal and businesslike, funnily enough though they were an utter failure, W.O.Bentley hated them, he was forced into building them by Birkin and Dorothy Paget (who had a lot of money in the company), he reckoned that they would be too unreliable and was proved right, I don't think they ever won any major races !

If I was lucky enough to have a couple of million lying around, I think I would rather get a "real" normally aspirated Bentley that had been  actually built in Cricklewood , oh yes ... and a very large house, rather than blow the lot on a  Volkswagen built replica with no soul or history behind it.

It will be interesting to see how many of the prospective owners will try to drive it more than once, an unblown car is a bit of a handful ( crash gearbox, throttle pedal in the middle, clutchstop etc.) add to that a few seconds of throttle lag (4ft long induction pipe between carbs and engine on the blowers) and you have a lot of expensive noises coming from the gearbox until you get it right !!!

 

OK rant over, sorry about that

 

Cheers

 

David

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A great deal of these recreations (including the recent announcement of BRM V16s) allow owners to race representative cars while retaining the originals where they won't be at risk of race incidents. Sir Anthony Bamford for example has a repro 61/62 GTO which replicates the original configuration of his genuine 63 car. Others will go abroad, so most buyers won't be too bothered by DVLA constraints.

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Agree, and for pure racing cars, the regs are of no consequence, as long as the relevant race organisers are happy to accept them.  Incidentally though, I am guessing that Bamford's 250GTO replica is probably a modified genuine '60s Ferrari 250 GT, and thus under different regs, especially if done pre 1997.  That those Ferraris also had a separate chassis also helps, since then body modifications don't cause any identity issues in the eyes of the DVLA.

 

1 hour ago, Sabrejet said:

Others will go abroad, so most buyers won't be too bothered by DVLA constraints.

They will still need to pass the appropriate local regulations if they are to be registered for the road.  From what I understand, it will probably be possible in many states in the USA (provided that they allow the import in the first place - not sure what the USA's low volume import regs are), may be possible in Australia & New Zealand under their modified vehicle systems, but very difficult in mainland Europe.  Apparently many hot rodders in mainland Europe have been getting highly modified cars registered under the UK's systems (which are actually quite easy for a hot rod to pass, provided that the rules & requirements are incorporated into the build from the start), and then using the UK registration documents to then get the vehicle registered in their own countries.  Whilst the UK's regs are not as accomodating as the USA, they are far more ameniable to modifying than any of our immediate neighbours.

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I have somehow mixed feelings about these kind of new creations. These show real huge amount of technical skills to create something like this in small scale production. And I understand that real car is just too valuable to be driven in track in full anger. And if there is engine failure in original engine, it would be a catastrophe. But somehow my heart says this is not a real deal, nice copy from original.

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