Bentley and Le Mans

LE MANS, June 21, 1930: Bentley is out to win the famed 24-hour race for the fourth time running. Between it and victory stands a Mercedes SSK driven by Rudolf Caracciola, Germany's greatest driver until the Schumacher era.

The strategy is simple: Sir Henry "Tim" Birkin will run his 4.5-litre Blower Bentley on pure benzole to provide power to match the pace of the supercharged 7.0-litre SSK, despite knowing that such a move means the engine is almost certain to break.

The less stressed Speed Six Bentleys will run behind, waiting to mop up should Birkin break the Mercedes. He sets about his task at once, to lie second behind the Mercedes by the third lap.

On the long Mulsanne Straight, he inches up on his rival despite a tyre throwing a tread under the strain. Undaunted, he approaches the Mulsanne hairpin at more than 125mph while the Mercedes occupies all of the narrow strip of road ahead. But there's always the grass - and Birkin has two of his three remaining tyre treads on it as he pulls off the overtaking manoevre of the decade.

Caracciola, as he later graciously concedes, never even sees the Bentley coming. On the third lap Birkin sets a new outright track record before first a tyre and then, later in the race, the engine give up. By then, however, the job is done. The Mercedes is broken and Woolf Barnato's Speed Six claims Bentley's fifth and final win at Le Mans.

Peter, a few years back, my good friend taped for me a series of British shows hosted by a British actor whose name eludes me.(no surprise there, I'm terrible with names) Each show dealt with a type of engine that changed the world, ie: the steam engine, the diesel, the gasoline engine, jet turbine etc. Was very entertaining. The actor , a big round fellow, had played police characters I believe on the telly over in your neck of the woods. (no, not the ex-Soviet Union)

Anyway, I bring this up, because in the gasoline internal engine show, he talked about the supercharger, and had some older Mercs from the 20's or 30's, and talked of the Bentleys of the time as well. Part was shot Germany with a running supercharged Merc, and with a camera onboard, he explained how it the blower would come on only on full throttle, and my, what a wonderful noise it made. The sound was a very high pitched whine, and the memory of the show makes me imagine what the cars that you are describing must have sounded like.

We shall have to see what happens this weekend won't we...

Can't take credit for the writing. It was the "Electronic Telegraph". However it goes a long way to bringing the atmosphere of those toime up to the present.

I posted it in the sportscar and GT forum as well.

Doln't actually recall the tv show you mention thogh. Maybe it was on whilst I was in yet another part of this very small world.;)

The TV show was called "Trains Planes and Automobiles" and was fronted by Robbie Coltrane, the rotund Scottish star of "Cracker". It was originally shown on Channel 4 but now makes fairly regular appearances on the various Discovery Network channels. I caught a repeat of the MB/Bentley prog about 3 months ago.

The Mercedes blower was intended to be used for only brief periods. It was indeed engaged by fully depressing the accelerator pedal, which also engaged the drive clutch for the blower.

Mercedes compressed the whole shebang, carburettor and all, with the float bowl included within the pressurised part of the system so that the mixture wouldn't be affected.

Under the pressure, Caracciola had to use the blower for too many long stints, hence the engine failed.

Vitesse got it bang on. Peter or Ray, if you get a chance to see any of the shows, they were quite entertaining. Coltraine did a good job of explaining in simple terms the origins, development and runnings of engines that we tend not to think about in our daily lives, and the impact they have had on us and history.
Thanks Ray for the tech info.

That was a great show. Well made and very interesting.