Blue Train Special
Once upon an enchanted time, a sporty gentleman by the name of Captain Woolf Barnato was guest at a smart 1930's dinner party in Cannes.
Captain Barnato was a businessman of substance, a celebrated racing driver, and a noted bon vivant. No doubt there was fine cuisine and good company at the table that evening, but we might guess that he nevertheless was feeling a little restless…
Talk around the table had swung round to the topic of motor cars; in particular to an advertisement by a manufacturer of the day claiming that his machine had gone faster than the famous Blue Train express as it journeyed on its way from Cannes to the French Channel port of Calais.
Barnato smiled. He contended that just to go faster than the Blue Train was of no special merit. Why, at the wheel of his own Speed Six Bentley, he declared, he could arrive in England before The Blue Train reached Calais! That would indeed be a test of man and machine. Would he care to prove it? He would!
The next day, as at 5:45 PM The Blue Train steamed out of the station at Cannes. Captain Barnato, with one of his friends who had gallantly offered to act as a relief driver, took to the mighty Bentley and set off at the double.
From Lyons onwards they had to battle against heavy rain. At 4:20 AM, in Auxerre, they lost time searching for a refueling rendezvous. Through central France they hit fog, then shortly after Paris they had a burst tyre, requiring the use of their one and only spare. And yet, racing non-stop through the night along the bumpy, 1930's Routes Nationales, they reached the coast at 10:30 AM, sailed over to England on the cross-Channel packet, and were neatly parked outside The Conservative Club in St. James's Street, London, by 3:20 PM - four minutes before The Blue Train was to arrive in Calais!
Woolf Barnato, a millionaire sportsman, had a number of swashbuckling Bentleys specially built for him in the 1930's including a 61/2 litre, 3-seater coupe with coachwork by Gurney-Nutting. The redoubtable Captain Barnato was long an admirer of W.O. Bentley's engineering expertise and during the 1930's invested heavily in Bentley Motors, and was appointed its Chairman.
A distance of over 570 miles, having maintained an average speed of 43.43 mph. (Re-printed from the Spring 1995 Quest Magazine)
and there never was a yellow/black one only red/black and the production ones are due out
) instead of putting it all on Ebay.
