History

Client Awards And Accolades

Letter from Alan Minchin, owner of No.10 Bentley Motors First Works Team Car

When I purchased MH 7580, she was rather tired, worn and in need of attention. Taking her to William’s I thought I would get away with just a ‘go faster’ engine rebuild. That is how it started; William’s critical eye however, bore through the car spotting faults and problems which would better be corrected then, rather than at a later date. It progressed by disassembly right back to the chassis which required straightening, welding and reriveting. All the old photographs including the Le Mans race pictures were computer enhanced so that during the rebuild the car could be returned to 1925 format.

William encouraged me to work on the project at Bury Street; he was a fastidious and a hard task master. Every ‘job’ had to be carried out with perfection, the face of every nut or bolt had to be lined up or form a pattern. I thought this was over-kill but he explained the engineering principle behind this, a loose nut or bolt could be spotted if out of alignment or pattern. If William did not approve of what I had done, I was made to do it again. Of course William and his team did the engineering; I was just the ‘boy’.

Autumn and winter of 2004 passed, the car was in a thousand pieces with components spread out between Bury Street, Oxford, Sussex, Hertfordshire and my home. “Don’t worry” he said we will have it together by June for the 2005 Le Mans Race. And we did---- just.

Wednesday, 15th. June at 0300 hrs. I was driving up and down the A10 to put mileage on the rebuilt engine then back to Williams at 0900 hrs. for all the ancillary equipment to be fitted. I left the team to finish and went home to bed at 2100 hrs. Thursday morning at 0100 hrs. the car was ready to be picked up. Five hours later we were on the road to Portsmouth and onto Le Mans. In all that weekend nearly 1000 miles were covered, unfortunately at ‘running in’ speed, fortunately the car behaved impeccably without missing a beat.

A week later after much cleaning MH 7580 won the BDC Concours for the 3 litre class, best vintage (Presidents Trophy) and overall winner (Foundation Trophy).

William’s knowledge, skill, dedication to Bentleys and hard work has to be admired. Perhaps it is in his genes, certainly a Rolls Royce apprenticeship was important.

Alan Minchin, FRCOG

Gallery

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