READERS’ LETTERS

YOUR SHOUT

Got something to say about anything Rolls-Royce or Bentley related? Then we want to hear it!

Send an email to rrb.ed@kelsey.co.uk or write to: The Editor, Rolls-Royce & Bentley Driver, Kelsey Publishing Ltd, The Granary, Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding, Kent, ME18 6AL

EXPERIENCE ON LPG?

I use my 1997 Bentley Brooklands quite regularly, almost as a daily driver, though I have a smaller modern car for city driving. With the horrifying recent rise in fuel prices I’ve got to the point where driving 100 miles costs at least £50, as I use only Super Unleaded because I believe it suits the car’s engine and because of the lower ethanol content. So I’ve cut back on use of the Bentley, which saddens me. I look after the car but I bought it to use it because I love driving it, but filling the tank now costs more than my annual insurance, and two fill-ups exceed what it costs me in road tax.

Have any readers converted Bentley Brooklands or Turbo Rs to run on LPG? I used to avoid cars with LPG conversions because I thought it was a sign of someone trying to run an expensive car on a budget, but with the recent price hike, the difference between a litre of Super Unleaded and a litre of LPG has risen to almost £1 – and an engineer friend tells me that LPG has a high octane rating and is therefore suitable to use with turbocharged engines. Does anyone still do this conversion work – and what would it cost?

Tom Derbyshire, Birmingham

We remember seeing at least one Brooklands with a multipoint LPG injection system fitted in period by a Bentley dealer, so it’s possible – though rare. Can readers offer advice?

NO TO INSIPID BENTLEY COLOURS

Re: the 2022 Bentley Flying Spur V8 on page 38 of the May/June issue. Why oh why? That insipid colour combined with black does the car no favours! Why accentuate that awful black line across the bonnet? The sombre interior is very depressing and as for the 'plain Jane' rear end on p 43....

The 'mean look' & Bentley simply do not go together!

Alex Kuhn

YES TO GOODWOOD CARS

You featured a Phantom Coupé in the latest edition of Rolls-Royce & Bentley Driver Magazine and asked for feedback as to whether we want more of the same.

Absolutely we do.

I have owned and driven many Rolls Royce and Bentley models.My 2006 Phantom VII is without doubt the best car I have ever owned.It is certainly the quietest car and it has the best ride of any Rolls Royce ever made. Surely that is what many owners want from a Rolls Royce.I have no problems reading about older RR models but after 20 years it is getting somewhat tedious to hear the endless chant of ‘It's not a Rolls Royce, It's a BMW’.

We all know that this is nonsense. The Phantom VII took RR to a new level of refinement. The motoring press declared it was the first time that RR could truly say it was the best car in the world.

More and more Phantom owners are now discovering the joys of ownership. Thank you for making us feel at home at last. Yes, there's always a place for the ubiquitous Silver Shadow et al but after 20 years, now is the time to recognise the Phantom for the incredible piece of engineering it is. Thank you for bringing it into the fold.

Barry Tyler

WHO WILL RESCUE FRENCH SHADOWS?

I have subscribed to RR&BD for about 3 years. I live 15 km south of Paris in France, I am 58 years old and I have had an unlimited passion for Rolls-Royce since I was 10 years old, following a stay in London.

I discovered, by chance, these 3 cars abandoned at a kind of car dealer, and unfortunately stored outside, located in Arpajon a few km from my home. I wanted to share these sad photos with you, which could make one of your passionate readers in France or Great Britain want to save them from this unbearable destiny for a lover of these beautiful cars. Apparently, there are 2 Silver Wraith II (or LWB II), and one Silver Shadow I, it was impossible for me to approach closer.

Rémy Dessaut

Thanks Rémy! That is a sad sight, and we think the Shadow I is certainly a Bentley T1, making it a relatively rare car, as are the long-wheelbase Wraiths. If anyone can attempt a rescue, email rrb.ed@kelsey.co.uk and we will put you in touch with Rémy. Thanks Barry. We should publish a full-length article – if any reader has an early Phantom VII they would like to volunteer for a photoshoot, please email rrb.ed@kelsey.co.uk

A HEARTY WELCOME

A very warm welcome to RollsRoyce & Bentley Driver, its wonderful team and the family of enthusiasts, afficionados and proud owners. I hope your tenure will be every bit as rewarding in all its wondrous forms as your predecessor Paul Guinness found.

I look forward to reading an excellent range of articles as I have done with past issues. A very good start was made with the May/June issue, which I enjoyed reading with the same enthusiasm and interest as in the past. A particular quirk of mine is I like to read the magazine on the month of issue, even then only one article at a time as I like to savour it for as long as possible.

And I would like to thank you for including my letters in the Your Shout section – it’s quite a thrill to see them in print.

So, Mr Boothman, have a wonderful editorial time.

Stephen Williams

READERS CARS REQUIRED!

I want to welcome you to your new position and convey a question for you. RR&BD is my favourite publication, but I have noticed the absence of the section for readers’ vehicles in the last two editions. Have you eliminated this section from the magazine? I certainly hope not as I always enjoyed this section. I wish you the best of good fortune in your new position and look forward to future issues of this amazing magazine. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Jeff Kelley Mustang, Oklahoma

Hi Jeff, thanks very much for the welcome I’m happy to say we are certainly keeping the Personal Choice section for readers’ cars, but the supply of content for these pages isn’t always consistent – sometimes plenty, sometimes none. This issue we have a remarkable tale of misfortune and redemption from a reader in Australia (p.82) and we already have some more great cars in the files to bring you in future issues. But as an appeal to other readers – please get in touch! The more cars, the merrier, so email rrb.ed@kelsey.co.uk

MEMORIES OF P&A WOOD

Further to my ‘Rolls-Royce jottings’ (the elusive Phantom II) which you kindly published in the March/April 2022 issue, I was suitably intrigued by the history of ‘Silver Ghost’, AX 201.

The one-time owner, Daniel Hanbury (any relation to the Hanburys of Hanbury Hall, near Chelmsford?) left the car to his son-in-law, Field Marshall Sir Alec Coryton, whose Cornish family are related to the Bonds of Erth Barton & Holwood, by Saltash; from which I descend – last of the line.

I was also interested to find the periodic involvement of P&A Wood in the continued maintenance of such a hallowed vehicle. I knew Paul & Andrew when they first bought the village garage in Great Bradfield, near Braintree, in the 1970s and I would borrow tools to keep my cars on the road. We had a mutual interest in vintage motorcycles. I seem to recall a rather forbidding 500cc (or thereabouts) Royal Enfield, predating my 1926 two-stroke model by some ten years. I also bought up their cache of BMC spares, inheriting the previous owners’ collection. Their success in maintaining prestigious models led to a new R-R and Bentley dealership at Dunmow, from where their most notable (and wellchronicled) engineering achievements have originated. I believe they were involved in the recordbreaking Brooklands machines, now preserved for posterity.

You have ‘hooked’ a new reader! Sadly, I can only afford MGs.

Penelope de Earthe Bond (Miss)

Thanks for that fascinating letter, Penelope. Alec Coryton was an Air Chief Marshall rather than a Field Marshall, and a near-contemporary of my great uncle Jack, Air Chief Marshall Sir John Boothman, but I didn’t realise Coryton owned AX 201. Glad to have hooked you!

THE BEST CUPCAKES IN THE WORLD?

Just a line to the new Editor to say I hope you will have a happy time with RR&BD. I have been a subscriber from day one and just love this magazine and also enjoyed corresponding with Paul Guinness, so I wish you all the best.

I wondered if you would be interested in this photo of the Rolls-Royce cakes – they were hand-made for me by my sisterin-law's daughter Samantha for my 75th birthday and I received them today. It's a shame to eat them!

Chris Wardlow