Dear Robert & Mona,

I cannot you enough for this truly fascinating as well as illuminating mailing!!! It fills a BIG current gap in information focussed on describing W O’s wonderful cars as thoroughly as they should be! You have clearly unleashed an avalanche of
equally fascinating responses, seemingly from real live WO enthusiasts around the globe! Being human, I am not often “totally" satisfied by anything, but your mailings have TOTALLY satisfied my desire to see more about WO’s masterpiece.

Regarding the issue of “Originality”, the lengthy, engaging discussion is extremely valuable for those of us lucky enough to be driving what we regard as relatively original cars. I happen to be quite proud of the fact that mine, YF1396, Chassis LT1591, happens to be well documented by Clare Hay’s books and the detailed, hand written WO Service records recording the mind boggling amount of “service” it experienced from when it was born, March of 1927.

The service records end in 1939, I assume because it was laid up for WW2. FYI, Some post war records show that YF 1396 “disappeared” in 1953. As I have mentioned to you, it “disappeared because of me, having bought it in 1953, clueless about the BDC, when I drove it briefly all over London, then on a long trip all over Europe as far south as Rome. I carried with me the 1953 edition of “The Technical Facts of The Vintage Bentley”, helping me many times on my journey, (replacing a wrist pin in Heidelberg, psychoanalyzing the hellish SU electric fuel pumps, etc.). Back in London, I then whisked it away to America, where it “rested” mostly off the road (because I was quite broke), till I had it restored in UK during 1999-2001, re-connecting with BDC and re-emerging the “disappeared” YF 1396 back into the vast archives of WO history. You did a GREAT job of briefly describing and illustrating the car in your last edition.

I promise to make good on my offer to write more thoroughly of its exploits in the reasonably near future!

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK,
Best Regards,
Peter Hopkinson

"Dear Mr. McLellan,

Your VB Newsletter solely about Vintage Bentleys fills a huge and growing publication gap (in my mind) between those of us still eccentric enough to be owning, maintaining, and driving W.O.’s fastest trucks in Europe, and the onslaught of post W.O. vehicles, however elegant, smooth and silent they may be.

I read the 1942 article on YF 1396 with great, great interest since I bought it, with its original UK plates, in 1953 from Chipstead Motors in London, drove it all over Europe, (very un-restored!), over the Alps as far south as Venice and Rome, then back to London, via the Corniche, Avignon and Calais, where I could not part with it and brought it to the US.

The article accurately describes the car and its adventurous maintenance happenings by Bentleys, etc, till "the War", when it may have been laid up. It is almost entirely original, chassis number LT1591, engine number AX1665, VdP body number 1330. Its condition was in "decline" when I finally had it restored in the UK in 1999, completed in 2001. I drove it all over UK and Scotland for a couple of years, then brought it back to US in 2004, and now have it in San Francisco, being "spruced up" with TLC in Berkeley. Its existence as a "very original car" has been correctly documented with all the correct numbers, in several official BDC books, including by Clare Hay. With luck and effort I hope to get it back on the road in the next several months.

If you are interested, I could write more. It is a very interesting, beautiful car, and appears now almost exactly as it was when W.O. created it.

Sincerely, and good luck with your excellent publication."

Photographs were taken at New England Region BDC Tour, 2012

Photographs were taken during 2006 Bridgehampton Rallye in Bridgehampton, New York.

The 3-litre Bentley when it was 15 years old.