LONDON TO EDINBURGH ROAD TRIP

LONDON TO EDINBURGH EXPRESS

Well, we could have charged up north like an express train, but we had a much more interesting plan – use the magazine’s Turbo R to visit all kinds of Rolls-Royce and Bentley people on the way.

WORD & PHOTOGRAPHY: NIGEL BOOTHMAN

You’re never far from a petrol station in the Turbo R, mentally at least.

Its appetite for super unleaded was daunting, but I had no real idea what MPG figure I would see. Ten, fifteen, twenty? I might never find out unless I could get some fuel into the tank in the first place. Pressing the fuel-filler cap’s release button makes a promising ‘clonk’ from the rear nearside of the car, but when I go round to unscrew the cap, the flap’s still shut. Try again – same result. So I jam the squashy leather fob from the keyring in the edge of the flap and then hit the button. Success! The flap flies open and the key fob falls to the deck.

On the M25, there are lots of temporary speed restrictions so 60mph is about the best we can do. I’m surprised to see the rev counter turning at well over 2500 rpm. Hmm, perhaps the Turbo R is lower geared on purpose to boost acceleration. I must ask Nigel Sandell. His place is our first stop on this trip from Kelsey Publishing’s HQ in Kent to my home in Edinburgh, for an appointment to get the dicky speedo looked at. It’s been more off than on, with some odd behaviour from the other gauges to match.

Nigel’s place is in Isleworth, a mile up the road from Twickenham Stadium, so a quick dodge up the M3 has us there by lunchtime. Before I dare present myself, I take the Bentley through a local car wash and it looks almost grateful, glistening in the sun.

Nigel Sandell still seems fond of our Turbo R - goodness knows why!

First the fascia comes off, then the DIP unit can be removed

I’m greeted by Nigel (we Nigels are an endangered species, so meeting another one always cheers us up) and Russell, who is the voice on the phone when you call Sandell’s. The car is straight into the workshop as one of Nigel’s guys confidently removes screws and lifts away dash veneer.

I have a chance to look around. The variety of cars Nigel deals with on a relatively small plot is extraordinary. There are those that make his core business – SY and SZ generation saloons and Corniches – but also Goodwood-era Phantoms, VW-era Bentleys, a Continental R, an E-type Jaguar and a gorgeous Derby Bentley with a Vanden Plas four-door cabriolet body that’s one of only eight built. Nigel and his team are currently working on a 25/30 which he has purchased from the same owner’s estate.

Nigel’s mechanic was checking the Bentley’s gear selector lever and noted that the detents were getting tired. I realised that despite being in the slot for ‘D’ on the M25, the car wasn’t changing up from intermediate gear – this must be why. Meanwhile, the Turbo R’s dash clocks, a plastic moulding called a DIP unit, were causing strife. The expected simple fix wasn’t forthcoming, so the resourceful Sandell’s solution was to borrow a known good one from another Turbo R and send me off with that. Great for me, less good for the other car, but we’d soon get things sorted out and the DIP unit sent back to the right place. However, all the in-out business with the two dashboards had taken a while, and London’s rush hour was coming on. I wouldn’t get much further up the country tonight, at least not at a suitable hour for visiting.

Outside BDC headquarters

During a quick romp out of the city, I found the gear selector needed a careful touch to ensure the D symbol lit up on the dash, but with this done, the gearbox behaved as normal. The cruise control held me at 70mph, now turning rather fewer revs than I had been doing before at 60mph.

The next morning I enjoyed a wonderful charge across the edge of the Cotswolds to find the Bentley Drivers’ Club in Wroxton, outside Banbury. Noel Trewhela greeted me and made us some coffee, and then to my surprise and delight he suggested we open the double doors to the large meeting room or lecture hall on the side of the building, and pop the Turbo R inside for a photo op. So we did. A rather more illustrious Bentley lives in the corner, the 1926 3-litre Le Mans team car. If you get a chance, go and see it, and walk round this wonderful room – the exhibits on the wall are fascinating.

So too is the rest of the building. Noel showed me round the archives and the library, which continues to expand, and revealed a room with portraits, furniture and even doors from W.O. Bentley’s office at the Cricklewood works. The display engines in the highceilinged foyer would have kept me enthralled for an hour all by themselves, but I had miles to cover. Back out through the lanes, heading northeast, I was aiming for the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts’ Club at the Hunt House, in Paulerspury, Northamptonshire. The Bentley was proving surprisingly wieldy on some cramped roads, with those four big paws riding straight »

Atrium space in BDC building is a magnificent spot for a coffee

“Not too bad for a 30 year-old, 6 ¾ -litre turbocharged car weighing more than two tons and driving through a three-speed auto.”

over rural road surfaces without a shudder. It left me wondering what roads would suit it best, and I think it might be the kind we don’t have here: wide, fast ribbons of tarmac that twist up over mountain passes, where you could set a very high average. If you’ve driven inland from northern Spain, you’ll know the kind of thing.

At the Hunt House I was welcomed by the RREC’s Chief, Ian Dorward. He too had plenty to show off, as the Hunt house has long since evolved into a mixture of office space, gracious old library, seminar room and workshops. The latter are home to several dismembered Rolls-Royces of different generations and prove valuable teaching aids during the club’s celebrated technical seminars, often taught by the likes of Nigel Sandell.

Ian was already looking forward to the annual concours at Burghley House outside Stamford, a focal point in the calendar for all RREC members. It takes immense organisation and the small team at the Hunt House are putting the hours in through May and June. After saying my farewells, it was time to point the Bentley’s blunt snout at the motorway. The M1 lacks almost everything that makes driving pleasant, so it was nice to get off after Leicester Forest East and fly along the B585 to find Flying Spares, outside Market Bosworth.

What appears to be a house with a workshop and some cars parked

Rear suspension sagging? This Royce crane should help outside turns out to be an amazing rabbit warren of stores, technical services buildings and garages that takes up a huge plot and employs around 60 people, full time. Gary Pinks gave me the tour, and the scope of what Flying Spares do on a day-today basis began to sink in. There were machines for testing high-pressure hydraulic components, engineers and craftsmen who specialised in just one or two important skills – rebuilding rear axles or dynamos or steering gear. And that was before I saw the recycling side of the business.

A significant amount of the parts that FS can offer to keep our cars on the road come from dismantled vehicles. These components get refurbished, rebuilt or just repainted, as required, and not only cut the cost of upkeep for us but add a little more to the argument that enjoying old cars can be an environmentally friendly activity. And it’s not limited to old cars, either – 21st century models are now being bought for scrap and carefully stripped of every useful ECU, sensor and actuator. I ordered a few much humbler parts for my new project car (see p.88) and Gary returned in about ten seconds flat with a cardboard box containing everything I needed.

I left with great reluctance, partly because there seemed so much more to see and partly because the M1 beckoned again. At least we avoided any serious hold-ups,

CEO Ian Dorward with a Cloud he's very fond of. Cullinan is on loan from RR

Just one of many corridors of spare parts

'Dave' and 'GT Dave' are cars kept to test new products, named after a much-loved late colleague, Dave Terry Even Arnages get dismantled when beyond reasonable repair

and after filling the tank with more 98-octane juice, I had a chance to settle down to some mental maths. The answer was 17mpg overall, which took in some London traffic, some fast acceleration through Cotswold lanes and some tedious patches on the motorway. Not too bad for a 30 year-old, 6 ¾ -litre turbocharged car weighing more than two tons and driving through a three-speed auto.

The next day promised some more entertaining driving and I set off from my overnight halt in Leeds to see Blair Jacobs at his business, Pipe Dreams Classics, west of Hull. East Yorkshire was doing a remarkable impression of Kansas in summertime – flat, with fields of waving greenery or slumbering livestock, all wilting under a hot sun. Blair’s place is a classic car storage and sales company, a business he started after leaving a career in broadcasting with the BBC »

and picking up a childhood passion.

‘Opening a storage business is ideal if you already have too many cars of your own,’ he says with a smile, but it must be a serious aid to temptation if you have discreet, secure, undercover storage waiting for any whimsical purchase. Blair has done well to keep his tally of Rolls-Royces down to two: a lovely Corniche, which we shot for a feature in a forthcoming issue, and a Shadow II that he took on as a potentially needy case, but it’s responded well to TLC and should be ready for use – or a new owner – soon.

I had all four windows down as the Bentley gathered speed along the laser-straight roads between the field drains, route-finding by guesswork up to Market Weighton and Pocklington. Should I head over the North York Moors and find the A1 north of Middlesbrough? There was still a long way to go up to Edinburgh and only part of the afternoon and just adopting the right posture. Lean back, left arm on the armrest, right hand on the wheel, let the old Blaupunkt find Radio 3 and then bury the right foot in the carpet when the traffic opens up.

It was nice while it lasted. ‘A1 CLOSED J62 NORTH’ said a matrix sign, and I said a rude word. But there was still time to divert onto the A68, that great, high, winding road that takes you onto the edge of the north Pennines across the top of Weardale and Tynedale. It’s the classic route across the border, so how could I refuse? With a just-in-case fuel stop at Corbridge I set off across Northumberland, leaving my stomach behind on each of the well-remembered crests on that section of Roman A68 that feels more like a roller-coaster than an A-road. Two lads on superbikes flew past, and I found to my surprise that the Bentley could keep up with them – until I saw what the speedometer was saying, and backed off.

I stopped for a photo at Carter Bar, the pass on the Scottish Border, by which time there was little else on the road. A clear run for the remaining hour and twenty minutes into Edinburgh suited the Turbo R very well, with the big tyres biting into each corner and the active suspension doing a fine job of keeping us unruffled and level. A quick pause to see a mate outside the city brought a surprise encounter with a very smart Mini Moke (and another photo op!) before it was home to rest up and let that big turbocharger cool down.

I’m looking forward to a few months with the Bentley. Yes, it has a few flaws to sort out, but cars with character often do. And my neighbours seem deeply impressed with it, which shows what good taste some people have, doesn’t it? ■

evening in which to do it, so I skirted the edge of York and took the A59 to the A1. The Turbo R was really growing on me, and I found it was becoming more comfortable the more I drove it. Perhaps you sink into the seat as it takes on your shape, or perhaps I was

At Carter Bar, the Scottish Border

One of these cars is worth at least £20,000

Coming down the hairpins on the A68