Received from Stephen Blakey on March 4, 2016
"Hi Robert, I read your newsletters with increasing horror and trepidation now that you have joined in the Originality debate. This seems to have become a cause with which Bentley owners can attack those they regard as having cars less original than their own and hence feel good about themselves. You don't need to go back very far to find a more enlightened period of vintage Bentley ownership where few people gave a monkey's and the fleet of cars was used as a big meccano set. The obsession with originality is a new phenomenon and I don't think it is a coincidence that it has arrived soon after the sudden hike in the value of the cars.

There are dark forces at work in Europe trying, sometimes successfully, to restrict the use of old cars. Those who can only afford non-original cars face hostility from the registration authorities, again a relatively recent phenomenon. We have the dark cloud of the EU Roadworthiness Directive 2018 hanging over us in which all old cars will be classified as either completely standard (including the original coachwork) or non-standard. Having classified the cars thus, it is not in the nature of bureaucracies to leave well alone. As few vintage Bentleys are precisely as they left the factory (and remember, the young people at the registration authority don't understand the difference between the body and the chassis), the Bentley movement is particularly vulnerable to unwelcome attention.

I urge you to please abandon the whole originality thing and find something else to write about on your excellent website. To do otherwise will simply encourage the dark forces to do their worst."

Received from Stephen Blakey on March 5, 2016
"Hello again Robert. It may have been a mistake to email on a Friday evening after an exhausting week of work as I don't think I expressed myself terribly well.

The verb I should have used for the new originality fascism is bullying not attacking. This is becoming the BDC's version of the "my car's better than yours" syndrome that so spoils other clubs and which has been so refreshingly absent from the BDC.

It should not be forgotten that many of the cars have only survived because people bought them in bits and jumbled up the parts. Also many of the cars survived the years where they were worthless by being put to alternative uses, e.g. by being converted to commercial vehicles or by being used for racing. The result is a complete hornet's nest of identity issues.

You may be aware that there is a UK member of the BDC who is waging a one-man vendetta against the RC cars. The vast majority of these were built by impecunious enthusiasts in a more enlightened time. It's not that long ago that, if you didn't have a chassis number, the local licensing office would tell you to invent one and people used to do things like amalgamating their children's birthdays. The BDC brought some order to that and did so in good faith, I'm sure. At least with the RC numbers, everyone knows exactly what they are. It is sad that the most affordable cars are under threat of having their identities revoked because of the unreasonable behaviour of one individual. The enlightened times are well and truly over, partly because of the Bugatti business, which is far more extreme than anything that has happened in the Bentley world. It is unlikely that many more vintage Bentleys can now be created and we should celebrate the ones that now exist, not look to find fault in them, particularly not those owned by the least wealthy members.