1930 Bentley Speed 6 ‘Blue Train’ Coupé

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1930 Bentley Speed Six Blue Train

Owner Bruce McCaw ‘Barnato was fined £160 for racing on public roads and banned by Bentley from the 1930 Paris Salon’

WOOLF BARNATO WAS A SPORTSMAN, CAD ABOUT town, general daredevil and Bentley CEO, and was dining aboard a yacht near Cannes in March 1930 when the subject of racing the famous Blue Train from the Côte d’Azur to Calais came up. Alvis and Rover had recently beaten the train from St Raphael to Calais, but Barnato wasn’t impressed, calling it ‘no great shakes’. He wagered £200 that he could beat the train to Calais at the wheel of his Speed Six. No one took him up on his bet, so he did it anyway with Dale Bourne, setting off at 5.45pm from the Carlton Bar the next day.

The first 185 miles to Lyon were wet, which slowed the duo down, and at 4am near Auxerre, they got lost trying to find their fuel stop. Despite losing more time with a puncture and dense fog near Paris, Barnato and Bourne pulled into Calais at 10:30am. They’d covered 570 miles at an average speed of 43.43mph, on dusty and rough roads.

However, the adventure wasn’t over. Barnato and Bourne had finished so far ahead of the train, they decided to carry on to London, crossing the English Channel by packet steamer. They arrived at the Conservative Club in London’s St James Street by 3.20pm, four minutes before the Blue Train pulled into the Calais railway station. For his trouble, Barnato was fined £160 for racing on public roads and banned by Bentley from the 1930 Paris Salon.

For many years it was believed that the Speed Six Barnato used to beat the Blue Train was a two-door coupé bodied by Gurney Nutting, as depicted by Terence Cuneo in his famous painting of the duel. Bruce McCaw, owner of the Gurney Nutting Speed Six, uncovered evidence that it may not have been finished until after the drive. Some historians believe Barnato instead raced the Blue Train in his Mulliner-bodied four-door Speed Six saloon.

McCaw traced the chassis and engine of Barnato’s Mulliner-bodied Speed Six, and also located the bodywork on a different Bentley chassis. He reunited the chassis with its original bodywork and showed the restored Mulliner Speed Six alongside his Gurney Nutting Speed Six at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in August 2003.

While McCaw feels it was probably the Mulliner-bodied saloon that raced the Blue Train, definitive proof may never be uncovered. But the Gurney Nutting Coupé is still widely known as the Blue Train Coupé and it remains one of the most iconic car designs in Bentley history.

ENGINE

6.6-litre, in-line six-cylinder, 24 valves, water-cooled, 180bhp, twin SU carburettors

CONFIGURATION Front-engine, four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive, aluminium body, rigid front axle with semi-elliptic leaf springs and friction dampers, live rear axle with semi-elliptic leaf springs and friction dampers, drum brakes all-round

ABOVE This probably isn’t the Speed Six that beat the Blue Train, but legend lives on…