Home » Classic Cars » Bentley rebuilds a link to the past, lost in a bombing raid in 1939

Bentley rebuilds a link to the past, lost in a bombing raid in 1939

08/08/2019

Mulliner took over the project in 2018, bringing the 1939 Corniche back to life in time for Bentley’s centenary celebrations.

In its centenary year, Bentley has resurrected one historic car that represents a crucial step in the evolution of its automobiles, but one that had been lost to time and to war. That car is the Bentley Corniche of 1939, and the story of its return to life is the perfect tribute to Bentley history in this important year for the marque.

The Corniche of 1939 is a crucial piece of Bentley history because it’s the car that introduced streamlining to the marque, which was still known for very square, stately and upright coachbuilt bodies. The Corniche created in 1939, on the other hand, sought to take advantage of aerodynamics in a road car.

“The 1939 Corniche was a clear step in Bentley’s design language, which is evident when set aside the later and now iconic R Type Continental,” Bentley chairman and CEO Adrian Hallmark notes. “It is a pivotal car in the history of Bentley, demonstrating that even then, this great British marque was at the cutting edge of design and technology.”

The original car was first commissioned by a Greek racer named Andre Embiricos, using an older 4 1/4-liter chassis. Embiricos wanted a sleek, lightweight body for the chassis, and designer Georges Paulin of the French coachbuilder Pourtout obliged. Even though the planned car was to be a one-off, created for a private buyer, Bentley itself was supportive of the design and engineering direction, collaborating with Embiricos and Paulin on the project, and was thinking of taking the Mk V saloon the same general route. But it was Carrosserie Vanvooren in Paris that created the bodywork for Embiricos’ car, which featured a pillarless design with rear-hinged doors — a very futuristic design element unseen in prewar Britain.

A traffic accident and WWII intervened. The original car was damaged in a crash in France in 1939 while undergoing road tests, and its chassis — but not the body — was sent to the Bentley factory in Derby. An air raid on the town of Dieppe in Normandy later that year destroyed the bodywork, and the Corniche was believed to have been lost forever.

Mulliner took over the project in 2018, bringing the 1939 Corniche back to life in time for Bentley’s centenary celebrations.

But several years ago, a number of volunteers from the WO Bentley Memorial Foundation and the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation began a project to rebuild the car, as some parts had remained in possession of Bentley collectors, sold off as spares decades ago. In 2018, the project was brought in-house and given to Mulliner, Bentley’s coachbuilding division, in an effort to complete it in time for Bentley’s centenary.

“It’s been a fantastic team effort,” said Stefan Sielaff, design director at Bentley and director of Mulliner. “We have highly skilled craftsmen within Mulliner and around the rest of Bentley Motors, and they all have massive pride in what they’ve achieved with this car.”

Using original Corniche parts and the technical drawings, Mulliner embarked to rebuild the car using the parts for prototypes that had been kept all this time.

“The Mulsanne body-in-white team, where panels are still hand-formed, helped with final detailed finessing of panels; the paint laboratory spent many hours producing color samples of the main body color of Imperial maroon and the side flash of Heather gray from the limited descriptions available; head of interior design Darren Day and his team produced CAD designs for the seats and door trims derived from detailed historical research; and the Mulliner trim team worked from the designs to create a period-appropriate interior in typical Vanvooren style, using the correct Connolly Vaumol hide, West of England cloth and the carpet from a roll discovered stored away on-site,” Bentley says.

The rebuilt car, the only one of its type in existence, will be displayed for the first time at Salon Prive at Blenheim Palace this September, and will then join the automaker’s heritage fleet.

Mulliner took over the project in 2018, bringing the 1939 Corniche back to life in time for Bentley’s centenary celebrations.

Source: Read Full Article