Veteran-Edwardian-vintage, January 1971

Alec Ulmann has a habit of raising interesting technical conundrums relating to motoring history, in Bulb Horn, the journal of the VMCC of America. Some time ago he sought to prove that W. O. Bentley copied unashamedly Mate Birkigt’s 1913 overhead camshaft Hispano-Suiza engine when evolving his famous 3-litre sports car. Ulmann remembers that he “received a reprimand from Mr. Bill Boddy, the very knowledgeable Editor of ‘Motor Sport’ Magazine” on that occasion. This has not deterred Ulmann from having another knock at Walter Bentley, in the Sept./Oct. 1970 issue of Bulb Horn.

He starts off by saying that having last summer been able to examine an o.h.c. four-cylinder 1913 Hispano Suiza engine, in a pick-up truck now being rebuilt near Gerona in Spain, he is more than ever convinced that in bringing out his 3-litre engine in the short space of time which elapsed between the signing of the Armistice and its announcement in late 1919; Bentley cribbed this Birkigt design. We have admitted the similarity of the Bentley engine to the 1914 GP Mercedes engine but unless Ulmann can show how W. O. could have come into possession of Swiss engine drawings during his military service (mostly in this country, temporarily in France) his charge in our view remains unproved.

Ulmann now attacks W. O. on another score. He compares the BR-1 and BR-2 rotary aero engines of the war years with the French Clerget 9-F engine and its Chiswick-developed 9-BF, suggesting that Bentley’s first aero-engine was a direct copy of the French one, having exactly the same number and size of cylinders, but weighing 31 lb. more and producing 156 rated h.p. at 1,300 r.p.m. against 202 rated h.p. at 1,350 r.p.m. of the Clerget. In saying the BR-1 was, power and weight apart, a “direct copy of the French-produced Clerget and also the British (172 mm.) variant” the American researcher has presumably compared these engines, detailed drawing by detailed drawing? The only evidence he has to reinforce his Bulb Horn article is hardly convincing—just a well-known photograph of a complete BR-2 engine, a cross-section of the 130 h.p. Clerget engine, a picture of a complete Clerget 7-F engine and a similar external view of a BR-1 engine.

As I remember it, Bentley was called in to eradicate unreliability in the RFC and RAF rotary engines and adding a little weight for a little less power at fractionally lower r.p.m. could well be his solution to this. Without knowing the intimate arrangements of Clerget versus BR-1 the fact, remarkable I agree, that they had the same 120×170 mm. bore and stroke, does not prove one to have been a crib of the other. I am on neutral ground in this argument, so little documentation on aero-engines, as distinct from aeroplanes, being available, apart from G. A. Burl’s WWI text book published by Charles Griffin & Co.—I am surprised that Putnam’s have consistently ignored this subject in their otherwise comprehensive aeronautical reference list.

Ulmann says, “rather than take the chance of being imprisoned in the Tower of London” he this time passes the onus to Glenn D. Angle, using data in his “Aircraft Engine Encyclopaedia—1921”. [If this was an annual reference work, perhaps it should be summarised and republished?—Ed.]. Ulmann says that after comparing illustrations and sectional drawings in that work, he is convinced that Bentley started his aero engine career by copying the 9-F Clerget, thus debunking any idea, for which the American researcher craves forgiveness for the blasphemy from the BDC, that W. O. Bentley’s BR-1 engine “bristled with great originality and daring design, with the object of obtaining a lighter and more efficient rotary engine than the Clerget”.

W. O. has plenty of admirers to defend him and on this occasion I cannot help much. It is obvious that his BR-t engine wasn’t lighter or more powerful, on Ulmann’s data, than the 9-F Clerget. But was it more efficient, in the vital sense of being more reliable? Ulmann himself says that the BR-2 engine “differs considerably from the prototype BR-1… and shows substantial increase in power and improvement in design”. So his criticism merely relates to BR-1 v. 9-F, for he goes on to say he is sure W. O. then “modified it, in a most brilliant way, I am sure”.

Well, what do W. O. Bentley’s supporters make of this? And does Ulmann have more evidence up his sleeve than his short article in Bulb Horn suggests?—I seem to recall that W. O. had infinite difficulty in obtaining financial reparation for his aero-engine work from the War Office, which could have been because they felt Clerget had initiated the work. We would seem to need a modern Geoffrey de Holden Stone to sort this one out!—W. B.

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The Frazer Nash Section of the VSCC held its Christmas Party at Leamington Spa on December 5th, 228 people attending. The guest speakers were Michael Parkes and W. Boddy.

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A remarkable Bentley
In “Cars In Books” last month I referred to the book (“Wild Irishman”, by Peggy Hamilton) about the career of C. W. F. Hamilton, who, among other things, came to England on holiday from his native New Zealand, bought a 4 1/2-litre Bentley four-seater and won three races at one Brooklands meeting with it, as this well-written book recalls.

I would not go as far as to say Hamilton was the only driver to score a triple-victory at a pre-war BARC meeting—I am too indolent to check, but it is probable that in his day Parry Thomas achieved this.

Nevertheless, for an amateur driver from down-under, this was quite a performance. Hamilton and his wife watched the 1929 Le Mans race on their way to England. Although this was won by the Barnato/Birkin Speed Six Bentley, 4 1/2-litre cars of this illustrious make occupied 2nd, 3rd and 4th places ahead of the Stutz and Chrysler opposition. So perhaps this decided Hamilton to get a Bentley when he got to England.

The car he bought was a used one, and as he is said to have worked on it at the factory (or had work done on it there?), and Bentley Motors had several used cars for sale in 1930, he probably bought it from them. The BDC archives reveal that it was given hour-glass pistons, flat-headed inlet valves, etc., and its springs were corded, while Hamilton borrowed a Brooklands silencer—so apparently he had no intention of staying long in this country!

He had entered the Bentley for two races at the March 1930 Brooklands meeting but non-started in both of them. It was at the Easter races that he put up such a remarkable performance. He came out first for the two-lap Bentley Handicap for the Woolf Barnato Cup (valued at £30). Seven 4 1/2-litre Bentleys were entered, by J. W. Anderson (driver, C. W. Fiennes), the Hon. Dorothy Paget (driver, Major H. Butler), M. O. de B. Durand, H. N. Holder, The Hon. Richard Norton, Hamilton, and Major H. Butler (driver, Noël Guinness). Three of these Bentleys were green, two, including the New Zealander’s, were black, one was aluminium and red. They were allowed to be in racing trim and a handicap was somehow worked out, Guinness and Hamilton going off first, 23 sec. before Fiennes in the scratch car. Holder was the only non-starter.

Whereas Guinness in Major Butler’s car only managed 78.79 m.p.h. for his opening lap, Hamilton did his at 85.57 m.p.h., the most accelerative lap in the race, only Durand getting anywhere near it. He then did his flying lap at 103.11 m.p.h., and, although Durand made best lap in the race, at 103.76 m.p.h., this was insufficient to make up a seven-second handicap deficiency. Hamilton had won his first one!

He was due out again for the Bedford Long Handicap, after watching Birkin set a new lap record of 135.33 m.p.h. in the blower 4 1/2 single-seater Bentley. The handicappers, Ebblewhite and Dutton, were by now wary of this unknown New Zealander and his second-hand Bentley. He had been down to start second in this race, 1 min. 21 sec. after “Nobby” Spero had been flagged away in his Austin Seven. But now Hamilton was put back another five seconds, behind Daybell’s 1922 TT Sunbeam, Pole’s mysterious 3,385 c.c. Mercedes and D. M. K. Marendaz in a Graham-Paige. There was, however, nothing to catch the Bentley. It opened at 87.38 m.p.h. and, lapping at 105.74, 107.80 and 105.52 m.p.h., again came first past the finishing line, to the jubilation of Mrs. Hamilton and her friends, who had gone to the Members’ Bridge to watch. Birkin, on scratch, equalled his recently-established lap record on two laps, but to no avail against Hamilton, who was followed home by E. M. Thomas’ Bugatti and Dunfee’s Bellot.

Determined to have his money’s worth while in England, as a change from racing his 1914 TT Sunbeam on New Zealand beaches, Hamilton had entered for a third race on this Easter Monday, The Sussex Long Handicap. In the race card he had a start of 52 sec. from Chris Staniland’s scratch blown 1 1/2-litre GP Bugatti. But by now the handicappers were scandalised, and they added another 20 sec. to the Bentley’s start. So there was Staniland, now only 32 sec. behind, Malcolm Campbell’s blown straight-eight Bugatti only 20 sec. in arrears. And off before the black Bentley went 14 other cars, led by Victor Horsman’s little Triumph Super Seven. The latter, unable to lap at more than 63.84 m.p.h., perhaps hardly counted, but there were Austins, Bugattis, two Amilcar Sixes and Durand’s Bentley to overtake. Hamilton was equal to it. He did his s.s. lap at 89.1 m.p.h. and continued at lap speeds of 106.42 and 105.29 m.p.h. to gain his third victory of the afternoon, finishing ahead of Cyril Paul in Mrs. Miller’s 21 1/2-litre Benz and Campbell’s Bugatti. On his holiday down at Weybridge he had won the Barnato Cup and other awards, to a total value of £90—not bad for a first appearance at the Track, playing very much “away”!

Hamilton does not appear to have raced again in this country before returning home. But (was it coincidence?) his Bentley was shipped out to New Zealand by someone else, after the war, and is today owned in that country by a BDC. member.—W. B.