Forrest Lycett and his amazing 8-litre Bentley (Page 2 of 9)
Motor Sport Magazine, July 1998

 

The 8-litre Bentley campaigned by the late Forrest Lycett was a very impressive sportscar a long time befpre highly-tuned 8-litre Bentleys and later Bentley Specials appeared on the vintage scene. Certainly, in its day this car had not only high performance capabilities but was also a road-going car of special allure. Mr Lycett, who commissioned it from L C McKenzie, his regular engineer and advisor, was quite a Bentley man. His motoring experiences dated back to the early days, with rides in Benz and Mercedes cars in Germany as far back as 1901 and his education extended in the ways intended back in England on a six-day tour with his father in 1903 on a 4hp De Dion Bouton. That in turn took him on to motorcycles, and to a Mars Carette by 1905, which those who loved them dubbed 'Mummy's Little Carrot' but which gave Lycett much trouble, and prompted A move to proper cars in the form of Sizaire-Naudins and more exciting machinery.

 

Stripped 8-litre in action at the Lewes Speed Trial

 

But Bentleys predominated. Altogether, Lycett had nine of them. He bought the first in the summer of 1924, influenced by the victory of Clement and Duff at Le Mans, which turned his mind away from a Vauxhall 30/98, which he thought was "hardly a 100 per cent job". Up to the outbreak of the war Lycett had covered about 280,000 miles in his Bentleys with a minimum of trouble and just a single breakdown, in 1938. Fie said that of the other cars he owned at the same time, by far and away the best was a 1930 Aston Martin, and quite the worst a 4½-litre lnvicta with which he replaced a 4½-litre Bentley but, after much financial loss due to breakdown, quickly bought back. Of the Bentleys, Lycett owned live 3-litres, two 4½-litres, a Speed Six, and the special 8-litre.

 

Besides his liking lir vintage Bentleys, Lycett also enjoyed driving. Taking into consideration the fact that the roads may have been less congested but were far more narrow and tortuous than they are now, with fewer by-passes round towns, I think he did pretty well. For instance, with the Aston Martin he often covered 400 miles in 4 day, and on the first Sunday after acquiring his first 3-litre Bentley Lycett drove from London to Nottingham and back with an ease that amazed him, and thereafter 300 miles in one day became an accepted standard.

 

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