Forrest Lycett and his amazing 8-litre Bentley (Page 3 of 9)
Motor Sport Magazine, July 1998

 

That he appreciated a Bentley's ability to easily and effortlessly eat the miles he once demonstrated to a business colleague who would boast of how he had motored all the way to Newcastle in a day. Lycett invited the man to accompany him in his 1926 3-litre to see whether, in his mid-forties, 70.0 he was equal to this feat. At Catterick Bridge Lycett feigned distress and was advised by his passenger to give up; after a drink at their destination he announced that they would go on to Alnwick. There the victim complained about the hotel but was told not to worry, because Lycett was about to drive him back to London! Before they had commenced the run, Lycett's man had removed the passenger's suitcase from the Bentley and so it was in London that they ended this little jaunt...

 

On other occasions a bragging victim was driven non-stop to Land's End after he had told of a wonderful endurance trip he had made as far as Honiton, and another was driven to Edinburgh and back to Newcastle in a day and home via the Likes on the day following, 1000 miles all-told. The 3-litres had auxiliary petrol tanks, so all this was virtually non-stop. With a 4½-litre Bentley the longest day's trip was to beyond Berwick-on-Tweed, where fog spoilt going on to Edinburgh, and back to London. On the Continent the trips were rather more leisurely, such as Dieppe to Basle on the second of the 4½-litres, Evreux to Bordeaux and Cadiz to Madrid on the Speed Six, and Heidelberg to Dieppe on the 8-litre. ‘The Ton’ (100mph) was first seen on a public highway with the Speed Six and after that the second 4½-litre, and of course the 8-litre did this as a matter of course. I think it can be agreed that Forrest Lycett liked pre-war driving; as he would say, all the Bentleys proved the truth of that saying "Distance no object".

 

I think it also fair to describe the 8-litre Bentley as an exceptional car for its time and purpose – that of a fast road-car, and a competition performer from 1934 with a truly exceptional maximum speed (somewhere in the region of 140mph). It can be called post-vintage, as it used a 1931 chassis.

 

Not everything 'Mac' had done to it at his works at 1 Spring Gardens, London SW1, was ever divulged but it can be said with certainty that it had an 11ft-wheelbase thanks to its 4-litre chassis. On this was mounted a smart two-seater body to Lycett's design, made by Corsica. The engine had three SLI carburettors fitted with McKenzie's special throttle -slides to obviate binding, instead of the twin H08 SUs of the standard power-unit, while the compression ratio was raised from the normal 5.5:1 to 7:1. Ignition was by two Bosch GF6A magnetos, replacing the dual ignition normally supplied from a coil-set and a single Bosch magneto.

 

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