Model Review – 1929 4½-litre supercharged Bentley
by Richard Loveys
Single-seater Bentley as it appeared in the 1932 British Empire Trophy.
ir Henry, perhaps better known as ‘Tim’, Birkin was one of the well-known ‘Bentley Boys’ who were led by Woolf Barnato and whose number included Glenn Kidston, Dr J Benjafield and ‘Sammy’ Davis. According to Doug Nye (Classic & Sports Car, May 1995) the star driver was Barnato, but Birkin was the most well-known – perhaps because he masterminded the super- charged Bentley project. One of the best known of these cars is perhaps the 1929 single-seater which was built to race at Brooklands and is the subject of this review. It had an interesting competition history and in 1932 raised the circuit’s lap record to 137.96mph. The car was sold for just over £5 million at a Bonhams auction in 2012.
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The kit of parts for this model was sold by Formula One Models and Prints as one of its Outer Circuit series; it was manufactured for the company by SMTS which is based in Hastings. In addition to the kits, fully-assembled models were sold. The kit for this review was bought in 1998 at a model exhibition which unfortunately does not run any more, it cost £33. The kit is designed so that it can be used to make any one of three versions of the vehicle – as the car was originally built finished in blue, as the record breaker in red, or as a road car, also in red. In the end it was decided to make none of these three but to build it as it appeared in the 1932 British Empire Trophy race at Brooklands, from which it retired. Part of the reason for choosing this version was that sufficient published pictures from this race were available.
The components in the kit were mainly made of well-cast white metal with some of the detailed parts made from thin photo-etched metal, there were two axles made from stiff wire, some transfers, four rubber tyres and a couple of small screws for the final assembly. The A4 sheet of
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This car set an Outer Circuit record of 137.96mph.
instructions included a helpful exploded drawing to show how the components were to be fitted together, a list of parts and notes of which were to be used for each of the three versions. There were some useful comments on the instruction sheet about building the model and information about which colour to paint the various pieces. The kit was well presented in a strong cardboard box which included a ‘Certificate of Authenticity’.
The first job in building the model was to fill in a few unwanted cut-outs designed for items which were not required, such as the road-going mudguards, as well as opening out some of the holes which were needed. The well-detailed wheels were each assembled from an inner and outer rim, a hub, a hub retainer, two photo-etched discs of spokes and a wheel nut. The rims were drilled and tyre inflators added before the tyres were fitted. It is rather a pity that the wheels are painted black as it can make the fine detail of these finished components difficult to see.
According to the pictures of the car in the 1932 race the carburettors were mounted in a different way to those in the kit; corrective action involved sawing them off the supercharger, adding two inlet pipes and then refitting the parts. The nicely made supercharger was polished and given a coat
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