Bentley 3/8 litre Supercharged Special 1925

1925 Bentley 3/8 litre Supercharged special. Chassis number: 1186 Registration: YL4119 Not one for the faint of heart; putting out 511hp at 3839 RPM. Affectionately known as: "The Missile". Chassis 1186 started life as a 3.0 litre Gurney Nutting Saloon. In 1989 it was aquired by A. (andrew) J. Day who decided to build a 3/8 litre special with supercharger giving phenominal power.

Andrew built the car for racing but with the brief that it also be tractable for touring; a 6 1/2 Litre engine was thus sourced & upgraded to 8.0 litre specification. The Supercharger, manifold arrangement & drive chain case are all "one off" designs cast & machined accordingly. The billet crankshaft & carillo con rods are phoenix sourced items.

The Supercharger is mounted parallel to the crank shaft & all is enclosed within the bonnet. Steve Grosvenor was entrusted with the design drawings & pattern construction, he being a specialist design engineer, and a first class neat installation resulted.

During development a new 8.0 litre block was used with American Arias Pistons, oversized valves, & a special cam shaft produced by Zephyr Engineering. The Exhaust system and "tuned sound" was constructed by "Len the pipe". Three SU carburettors complete the picture, two on the off side manifold & one tucked away to the front of the exhaust manifold on the near side.

The car has hydraulic drum brakes all round attached to original front & rear axles having tie bars to the front & tie rods to the rear. The D Type gear box drives through a heavy duty Borg & Beck clutch. On a rolling road the car was recorded as putting out 511BHP at 3839 RPM.

The immense power means the wheels will spin in first second & third gears, 60 mph being attainable in first & 90 in second. A full quotient or instruments are fitted to the machine turned dash including a large Jaeger Tachometer. The car is in pristine condition throughout & ready for serious road use or racing.

It sports a gorgeous 2 seat boat tailed body that is rakish in the extreme & is finished in, needless to say, traditional British Racing Green.