Bentley Driver’s Must Read: Bentley Continental, Corniche, & Azure 1951-2002

by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img Veloce ::: Bentley Continental, Corniche, & Azure 1951-2002

LISTED fourth down on a roster that reads like a mid-20th Century Who’s Who , American racing legend Briggs Cunningham took delivery of BCA4 (built expressly for him without emblems or mascots and in right-hand drive by coachbuilder exemplar, H.J. Mulliner) on what must’ve been a beautiful summer day in 1952.

The car that Mr. Cunningham received was the newly minted Bentley R Type Continental -Britain’s first post-war supercar; a unique-to-Bentley 2+2 grand tourer; a classic today.

Martin Bennett chronicles Mr. Cunningham’s superlative car and others in Bentley Continental, Corniche & Azure 1951-2002 published by Veloce and distributed by Motorbooks.

Two hundred and fifty two pages (256, if you count the three full-page RR/Bentley service adverts at the back), the UK turned Aussie native’s work is by all accounts a well documented history of postwar Bentley coupes up until the introduction of the VW Phaeton based GTs.

In exchange for this informational over-abundance (including such finite details as how Bentley management chose to fit the seats of the magnificent 90s Azure into the Continentals R and T for ease of ingress and egress), and perhaps with the type of customer in mind, the publisher demands a Bentleyesque price – $150 suggested retail.

With razor focus, Mr. Bennett chronicles the only Bentleys to be visually and somewhat mechanically unique of their Rolls-Royce stablemates (except for the 70s & 80s Corniche) – a rarity in the annals of the two marque’s long-entwined history.

Lacking the comprehensiveness of Anthony Bird & Ian Hallows’s The Rolls-Royce Motor Car and the Bentley since 1931, but similar in grace of presentation (art deco titles with smarty organized listings) Mr. Bennett’s work will in presentation and informational offerings appeal directly to those precious few who count themselves privileged to own a Continental, Corniche, or Azure.

Mr. Bennett stolidly delivers the essential aspects of the Continental as he describes in the text’s introduction:

“The appellation ‘Continental’ is perhaps the most evocative in Bentley history, conjuring as it does visions of fast motoring to the South of France, or through the Alps Maritimes, with silken power clothed in supremely elegant coachwork, and drivers and passengers enveloped in the heady aroma of Connolly hides and the rich glow of fine woodwork.”

Mr. Cunningham doubtless thought the same of his first Continental.

Ed. note: Motorbooks furnished the reviewer (yours truly) with a copy of this prodigious text.