James Bond's Bentley Continental

By
David A. Sulzberger

The Henri Chapron conversion of BC-63-LC
was probably the inspiration for Bond's Locomotive.
(click the picture to enlarge)

Ian Fleming wrote the fourteen original books about Secret Agent James Bond between 1953 and his death in August 1964. The last two were published posthumously. These sold over a million copies each, establishing 007 worldwide as the best known Englishman since Saint George and the most potent mid-twentieth century hero in fiction.

James Bond owned three Bentleys. The third car was a special R-Type Continental. This was modified at least twice at Bond's behest into a truly unique but not entirely 'fictional' car. All Bond's cars were painted a non-glossy matt grey, a colour described by both Fleming and his school friend and wartime colleague Ivar Bryce as "elephant's breath grey." (As with Fleming and Bryce, Bond too had been to Eton and served as a Naval Intelligence Officer.). Interestingly this was also the colour of the Bentley Continental belonging to Bryce and his American wife, Josephine Bryce of 161 East 74th Street in New York City. In the autumn of 1952 when Rolls-Royce announced the introduction of this exclusive new model, Ian Fleming ordered a left-hand drive car, chassis number BC-10-LB. He did this at the Bryces' request and handled its purchase directly with Rolls-Royce on their behalf. The Bentley build-card lists Commander Ian Fleming as sales agent for this tax-free 'export' transaction.

The Bryce's chauffeur collected this car from the factory at Crewe on the 22nd of April 1953. It remained in England but returned for various adjustments over the next year. Rolls-Royce finally dispatched the car by plane from Port Lympne to Le Touquet on 5th May 1954. Fleming, who at that time had just introduced James Bond to the world, had the use of this car and drove it extensively, both in England and on the 'Continent'. In 1955, it was shipped by Rolls-Royce from England to the Bahamas for use between the Bryces' home in Nassau and Xanadu, their magnificent property at Lyford Key. Subsequently the car was sent to New York and kept at Black Hole Hollow Farm, the Bryce country estate in Vermont, which Fleming visited on several occasions. Thus, he knew the character and performance of this model extremely well. The fastest and most expensive touring car of its day, it is no surprise that Fleming should eventually replace Bond's pre-war model with such a "Grande Routière", a truly worthy successor to the sporting Bentleys of the 1920s and 1930s.

Ian Fleming driving a Blower Bentley
(click the picture to enlarge)

James Bond's first Bentley was a 1930 4 ½ litre with an Amherst Villiers supercharger. It was a "Convertible coupé" with large French Marchal headlamps. Fleming introduces the car in his first novel "Casino Royale", published in 1953, stating "Bond's car was his only personal hobby … Bond drove it hard and well with an almost sensual pleasure." (See chapter 2, "Dossier for M") Bond had bought this car in 1933, keeping it safely in storage throughout the Second World War. The Bentley is wrecked when Bond crashes at high speed whilst chasing the villainous Le Chiffre in a front-wheel drive Citroen 15 'Traction Avant', after running into a "small carpet of glinting steel spikes" that have been strewn across the road ahead of him. (See chapter 16, "The Crawling of the Skin")

The car is presumably repaired, since it reappears in the third Bond novel "Moonraker", published in 1955. In the opening chapter "Secret Paper-Work" Fleming writes: "He had a small but comfortable flat off the King's Road, an elderly Scottish housekeeper - a treasure called May - and a 1930 4 ½ litre battleship grey Convertible coupé, supercharged, which he kept expertly tuned so that he could do a hundred when he wanted to…On these things he spent all his money and it was his ambition to have as little as possible in his banking account when he was killed…" In Moonraker, the car is wrecked yet again, chasing the wicked Sir Hugo Drax. Bond, in his "battered grey Bentley" is following Drax's white Mercedes Type 300S convertible at high speed in Kent; he crashes into heavy rolls of newsprint that fall out of a lorry into the path of his speeding car, after Drax has had the load sabotaged by his Peter Lorre lookalike 'dogsbody', Willy Krebs. (See chapter 20, "Drax's Gambit") Once again, Bond miraculously survives but this time the car does not.

At the back of his mind, Bond must already have been contemplating buying a 'modern' model. Earlier, with M as his Bridge partner, he had punishingly won £15,000 at M's club, Blades, from the ogreish card-cheat 'Hugger' Drax. "I should spend the money quickly, Commander Bond," Drax had threatened. (See chapter 6, "Cards with a Stranger" and chapter 7, "The Quickness of the Hand"). Pondering how he would use this "miraculous windfall" …Bond decided "All right then, he would spend it quickly. He sat down at his desk and picked up a pencil. He thought for a moment and then wrote carefully on a memorandum pad headed 'Top Secret'

(1) Rolls-Bentley Convertible, say £5,000.
(2) Three diamond clips at £250 each, £750.

He paused. That still left nearly £10,000. Some clothes, paint the flat, a set of the new Henry Cotton irons, a few dozen Taittinger champagne. But those could wait. He would go that afternoon, buy the clips, and talk to Bentley's." (See chapter 8, "The Red Telephone")

Consequently, still in Moonraker, James Bond acquires his second Bentley. When Bond, recovering from the crash, returns to his office, he asks his secretary, Loelia Ponsonby (Lil) "Anything for me?" She replies "Your new car's downstairs. I've inspected it. The man said you'd ordered it on trial this morning. It looks lovely…" Bond "limped out" to see the car. "The 1953 Mark VI, had an open touring body. It was battleship grey like the old 4 ½ litre that had gone to its grave in a Maidstone garage, and the dark blue leather upholstery gave a luxurious hiss as he climbed awkwardly in beside the test driver." After half an hour's drive, Bond buys the car. "We could get more speed out of her if you want it, sir" the factory driver informs him. "If we could have her back for a fortnight we could tune her to do well over the hundred." "Later" Bond replies. "She is sold on one condition. That you get her over to the ferry terminal at Calais by tomorrow evening." (See chapter 25, "Zero Plus")

Presumably neither Fleming nor Bond were satisfied with the rather bulky convertible Mark VI, re-tuned or not, since in "Thunderball", published in 1961, 007 drives a Bentley Continental described as "the most selfish car in England".

For Bond, Fleming wanted something special: A car both typically British and unique. As early as 1957 when he was researching gold and gold smuggling rackets for his next 007 thriller, "Goldfinger" which was published two years later, he conceived of a fictional car which literally combined his two favourite models, both of which he knew intimately. At that time he wrote to his friend Whitney Straight, who was chairman of Rolls-Royce: "In connection with James Bond's new car, I would like it to be a cross between a Continental Bentley and a Ford Thunderbird - i.e. a smallish cockpit with a long bonnet line and a large boot behind". He enquired whether anyone on Rolls-Royce's design team could inform him who might be "the best people to have designed such a body, which should be a press button convertible." The reply indicated that Mulliner's were working on something of exactly this sort.

Bond's fictional Continental was modified from the normal two-door fastback coupé to an open two-seater. "It was a MK (V) I Continental Bentley that some rich idiot had married to a telegraph pole on the Great West Road. Bond had bought the bits for £1,500 and Rolls had straightened the bend in the chassis and fitted new clockwork - the Mark VI engine with 9.5 compression." The engine modification would in fact have been the upgrade from 4.5 litres to the larger 4.9 litre engine, which had been introduced in the summer of 1954 with the 'D' series cars. These engine exchanges were done by Rolls-Royce to 37 of the early series cars that had been delivered with 4.5 engines (9 series A, 6 series B and 22 series C).

Then "Bond had gone to Mulliners with £3,000 which was half his total capital, and they had sawn off the old cramped sports saloon body and had fitted a trim, rather square convertible two-seater affair, power-operated, with only two large armed bucket seats in black leather. The rest of the blunt end was all knife-edged rather ugly, trunk…" Just as with the Bryce Continental, BC-10-LB; "The car was painted in rough, not gloss, battleship grey and the upholstery was black morocco", most of its embellishments were painted rather than chromed and it sported a plain radiator cap. "She went like a bird and a bomb and Bond loved her more than all the women at present in his life rolled, if that were feasible, together."

One real Continental, BC 63 LC, was in fact converted from a normal Mulliner fastback to an open car, of a very similar shape to Fleming's description of Bond's Continental. This too had been seriously damaged in an accident. Its Portuguese owner, named in factory records as Antonio Francisco Machado Ferreria de Carvalho E. Silva, commissioned Mulliners in 1956 to design open coachwork for a complete rebuild. Mulliners produced design No. 7453 for this project. In many ways, this design closely resembled several S1 and S2 open Continentals, which Mulliners did build. However, the costs of rebuilding in England were apparently prohibitively high.

H.J. Mulliner Drophead Coupe design No.7453 for BC-63-LC that was not built.
(click the picture to enlarge)

The client chose instead to go to the French coachbuilder Henri Chapron. Chapron designer Carlo Delaisse created design No. 5296 that was accepted and used. This retained the original Mulliner front end, windscreen and doors, but with a short open top and an entirely different squared-off, rear end in lieu of the closed sloping fastback. The tail lights were incorporated in low horizontal fins at the end of the rear wings, each of which also housed one of twin 45 litre capacity fuel tanks, allowing the convertible top to fold flat into the boot with considerable luggage space remaining. The car was completed under the supervision of the Paris Rolls-Bentley Agents, Franco Britannic Automobiles.

Drophead Coupe design No. 5296 by Carlo Delaisse for BC-63-LC
(click the picture to enlarge)

The result, with its 'Thunderbird' like rear and low tail-fins, is so close to Fleming's description of Bond's Continental in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", that it is tempting to speculate that he must have known what it looked like. BC 63 LC is now in a collection in Japan.

Fleming in fact did not introduce Bond's new car in "Goldfinger", which features instead the MI6 Motor-Pool's Aston Martin. He kept it in mind and the Continental made its first appearance in "Thunderball", which was published in 1961.

"But, Bond refused to be owned by any car. A car, however splendid, was a means of locomotion (he called the Continental "the locomotive … I'll pick you up in my locomotive") and it must at all times be ready to loco mote - no garage doors to break one's nails on, no pampering with mechanics except for the quick monthly service. The locomotive slept out of doors in front of his flat and was required to start immediately, in all weathers, and, after that, stay on the road."

Bond's 2-inch twin exhausts were not just an invention.
(click the picture to enlarge)

"The twin exhausts - Bond had demanded two inch pipes; he hadn't liked the old soft flutter of the marque - growled solidly as the long grey nose, topped by a big octagonal silver bolt instead of the winged B, swerved out of the little Chelsea square into the King's Road…. Bond pushed the car fast up Sloane Street and into the park. It would be too early for the traffic police, so he did some fancy driving that brought him to the Marble Arch exit in three minutes flat." (See chapter 7, "Fasten Your Lap-Strap")

Bond still has this car in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", published in 1963. He is "driving by the automatic pilot that is built in to all rally class drivers" in "the old Continental Bentley - the 'R' Type chassis with the big VI engine and a 13:40 back-axle ratio - that he had now been driving for three years", though it has been modified even further. "Against the solemn warnings of Rolls-Royce, he had had fitted, by his pet expert at the Headquarters' motor pool, an Arnott Supercharger controlled by a magnetic clutch".

"Nursing his car…along that fast but dull stretch of N.1 between Abbeville and Montreuil that takes the English tourist back to his country via Silver City Airways from Le Touquet or by ferry from Bologne or Calais, he was hurrying safely, at between 80 and 90…and his mind was totally occupied with drafting his letter of resignation from the Secret Service."

"It was then, on a ten mile straight cut through a forest, that it happened. Triple wind-horns screamed their banshee discord in his ear, and a low, white two-seater, a Lancia Flaminia Zagato Spyder with its hood down, tore passed him, cut in cheekily across his bonnet and pulled away, the sexy boom of its twin exhaust echoing back from the border of trees. And it was a girl driving, a girl with a shocking pink scarf tied around her hair, leaving a brief pink tail that the wind blew horizontal behind her."

"If there was one thing that set James Bond really moving in life, with the exception of gun-play, it was being passed at speed by a pretty girl; and it was his experience that girls that drove competitively like that were always pretty - and exciting. The shock of the wind-horn's scream had automatically …emptied Bond's head of all other thought and brought his car under manual control. Now, with a tight-lipped smile, he stamped his foot into the floorboard, held the wheel firmly at a quarter to three and went after her. "

Speedometer showing 128mph!
(click the picture to enlarge)

"100, 110, 115, and he still wasn't gaining. Bond reached forward to the dashboard and flicked up a red switch. The thin whine of machinery on the brink of torment tore at his eardrums and the Bentley gave an almost perceptible kick forward. 120, 125. He was definitely gaining. Fifty yards, 40, 30! Now he could just see her eyes in her rear mirror. But the good road was running out. One of those exclamation marks that the French use to denote danger flashed by on his right. And now, over a rise, there was a church spire, the clustered houses of a small village at the bottom of a steepish hill, the snake-sign of another S-bend. Both cars slowed down - 90, 80, 70. Bond watched her tail-lights briefly blaze, saw her right hand reach down to the floor stick, almost simultaneously with his own, and change down…"

"And so the race went on, Bond gaining a little on the straights but losing it all to the famous Lancia road-holding through the villages and, he had to admit, to her wonderful, nerveless driving. And now a big Michelin sign said "Montreuil 5…" The decision was taken out of his hands. Montreuil is a dangerous town with cobbled twisting streets and much farm traffic. Bond was fifty yards behind her at the outskirts, but, with his big car, he couldn't follow her fast slalom through the hazards and, by the time he was out of the town and over the Etaples-Paris level-crossing she had vanished…"

"He leaned forward and flicked the red switch. The moan of the blower died away and there was silence in the car as he motored along easing his tense muscles. He wondered if the supercharger had damaged the engine…Rolls-Royce had said the crankshaft bearings wouldn't take the extra load and…they regretfully but firmly withdrew their guarantees and washed their hands of their bastardised child. This was the first time he had notched 125 and the rev. counter had hovered dangerously over the red line at 4500. But the temperature and oil were O.K. and there were no expensive noises. And, by God, it had been fun!" (See chapter 2, "Gran Turismo").

This is how Bond first encounters Tracy di Vincenzo, whom he chases, finds and subsequently marries. Immediately after their wedding she is killed while they are travelling in her Lancia, shot instead of Bond by the villainous Ernst Stavro Blofeld of SPECTRE, from his passing red Maserati convertible. (See the last page of the book). Bond successfully hunts down Blofeld and his companion Irma Bunt in the following volume, ''You Only Live Twice", published in 1964.

Ian Fleming painted by Amherst Villiers.
(click the picture to enlarge)

The Bentley Continental continues as 007's own personal car in Ian Fleming's subsequent James Bond books. After Fleming's death his friend and admirer Kingsley Amis wrote one additional James Bond novel, under the pseudonym Robert Markham. This was "Colonel Sun" published in 1968. Amis had already written both a Bond critique, "The James Bond Dossier", and a curious little book called "The Book of Bond (or Every Man his own 007)" by Lt-Col William ('Bill') Tanner. This was subtitled "A Mine of Information for Would-be Bonds". Here Amis impersonated M's Chief of Staff, Bill Tanner. Both these books were published in 1965. One other notable Bond novel appeared in 1973. Written by Ian Fleming's principal biographer, John Pearson, it is entitled "James Bond: The Authorised Biography of 007". The 'Locomotive' Bentley Continental remains Bond's personal car in both "Colonel Sun" and the Pearson "Authorised Biography".

Both books and films feature Bond in numerous other exotic cars, particularly when he is abroad, such as his friend Felix Leiter's Studillac. This car, an open Studebaker coupé powered by a huge Cadillac engine actually existed. It was commissioned in the mid 1950's by Fleming's friend, William Woodward II, and a number were built by Tappett and Frick Motors on Long Island. When necessary, the motor pool also provides him with specially outfitted vehicles, notably the well-equipped Aston Martin DB III introduced in "Goldfinger", published in 1959, in which he pursues Auric Goldfinger and his Korean chauffeur and hatchet man, Oddjob.

The Aston Martin was updated to the celebrated silver DB5 in the 1964 film 'Goldfinger'. The film dialogue does acknowledge the existence of Bond's Continental in the following exchange with Major Boothroyd, the MI6 armourer and 'Equipment Officer', better known as Q:

007: "Where is my Bentley?"
Q: "Oh, it's had its day I'm afraid "
007: "But it's never let me down."
Q: "M's orders. You'll use this Aston Martin DB5 with modifications…"

Thus in four short sentences of screen dialogue the celluloid Bond ceases to be a Bentley Boy.

Post Script

One other R-Type Continental was also completely rebuilt as an open two-seater after it too had been crashed. In 1965, BC 65 D was stolen from its owner, W.R. Cheston's garage. Having picked up two unfortunate hitchhikers, the thief overturned the car at high speed in the New Forest, killing all onboard. The car was declared a complete write-off. Shortly afterwards, the Hon. Alan Clark, MP bought the remains for £550 from the insurers. He took these to Bradley Brothers, early exponents of the MK VI Special, who built him a simple open tourer. It remains the only 'Special' based on an R-Type Continental. Alan Clark admitted with some pride that the car, known as 'Bang-Bang' in his family, was "too fast for the owner" having achieved 114 mph in third gear. This nickname evokes the magic car Fleming features in his set of three children's books. Titled "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". These were based on bedtime stories he had told his son Caspar, taking the name and exploits of the real 'Chitty Chity Bang Bang', the huge 23- litre Maybach engined racing car driven by the eccentric Count Louis Zborowski in the 1920s. Ian Fleming could not have known about Clark's car, since all this occurred after his death. It is probable however, that Clark had read "Thunderball" and therefore knew about James Bond's 'locomotive'. Unfortunately, since his recent death, we can no longer check with him whether the Bond car was part of his inspiration.

Around 1976 Alan Clark sold the remains of BC 65 D's heavily damaged Mulliner body, (No. 5806), to an enthusiast named G. L. Joberns. A. B. Price was commissioned to repair the coachwork, which was then fitted onto a normal R-Type donor chassis. The entire offside of the car had to be replaced, using modified front and rear wings supplied by Mulliner. Later the standard R-Type engine, gear box and rear axle were up-rated to Continental Specification by Healey Brothers. This 'born again' car remains in England.