Rolland-Pilain

France, 1906 – 1931

SA des Etablissements Rolland-Pilain, Tours

Unusual among French marques of its period, Rolland Pilain cars made their greatest impact after World War 1. Their first product was a 20hp 4-cylinder model Rolland Pilain cars with a monobloc engine, though smaller 2.2-litre shaft-driven Rolland Pilain cars were available in 1909 and a 3-speed 1½-litre Rolland Pilain 8/10CV in 1910, in which year the Rolland Pilain car company was also experimenting with ‘valveless’ engines and 4-wheel brakes. Though racing was in the doldrums, the Rolland Pilain car company went to the trouble of building a big chain-driven Rolland Pilain car for the 1911 Grand Prix de France, and a complex 1912 range started with a Rolland Pilain 9CV of 1.7-litres and went up to a chain-driven 4-cylinder 60 Rolland Pilain car of 130x270mm. The 6-cylinder Rolland Pilain 18CV had a ‘valveless’ engine, and even in 1913 chain drive was still optional on the biggest fours of 20CV and 24CV Rolland Pilain cars. Only 1.9-litre and 4-litre 4-cylinder Rolland Pilain cars with sv monobloc engines and unit gearboxes were listed in 1914.

These basic types of Rolland Pilain cars, still with pedal-operated transmission brakes, were available again after World War 1, but far more advanced was the 2.2-litre Rolland Pilain 14/16 of 1921, which boasted not only overhead valves and a detachable head, but also front-wheel brakes (hydraulic at the front and mechanical at the rear). This Rolland Pilain car was still catalogued in 1926. Even more ambitious was the 2-litre twin ohc straight-8 GP Rolland Pilain car of 1922, with desmodromic valves, ball-bearing crankshafts and 4-wheel hydraulic brakes. A victory of a Rolland Pilain car at San Sebastian in 1923 was the limit of the success of Rolland Pilain cars on the circuits, but the type found its way into the catalogue as the Type A22 Rolland Pilain car at 90.000fr, and one of the racers also ran with a 2-litre, 6-cylinder cuff-valve Schmid engine. In 1925 came a 2-litre ohv 4-cylinder Rolland Pilain car with 4-wheel mechanical brakes, selling for £725 in England, while a 1½-litre development, the Rolland Pilain D26, was introduced for 1927. In 1929 Rolland-Pilain car, along with several other French firms, tried a Franco-American theme by introducing a range of big luxury chassis with sv Continental engines. Both the 6-cylinder, 3-litre, and the 4-litre straight-8 Rolland Pilain cars had centralized chassis lubrication, though the elegant bodywork of the Rolland Pilain car was marred by the use of artillery wheels. At the 1930 Paris Salon the Rolland Pilain car company shared a stand with the BNC (also going through a Franco-American phase), but this was the end, though the Rolland Pilain car firm’s Paris depot was still advertising spare parts for Bignan as well as Rolland Pilain cars in 1934.

Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; MCS

The information is written with the greatest of care. However, if you have any suggested amendments please contact us at office@prewarcar.com

Bentley

GB, 1920 to date

(1) Bentley Motors Ltd, Cricklewood, London N.W.2., 1920 – 1931

(2) Bentley Motors (1931) Ltd, Derby, 1933 – 1945

(3) Bentley Motors (1931 Ltd, Crewe, Cheshire, 1946 to date

W.O. Bentley was already well-known as the importer of the D.F.P. car, a pioneer of aluminium pistons and a designer of successful rotary aircraft engines when his first Bentley 3-litre car for sale appeared at the 1919 London Show. This Bentley model, indelibly imprinted in the layman’s mind as the archetype of the Vintage sports car, had a long-stroke (80x149mm) single ohc engine with fixed head and dual magneto ignition developing about 70bhp in its early form. The Bentley 3-litre was at its best in long-distance events; a team of Bentley 3-litres with flat radiators (the only instance of this apart from the same year’s Indianapolis car) finished 2nd, 3rd, and 5th in the 1922 T.T., and the model accounted for the first two of the marque’s Le Mans wins, those of Duff/ Clement in 1924 and Davis/ Benjafield in 1927 on the badly damaged ‘Bentley Old No. 7’ – one of the legends of motor-racin history. Up to 1929 1.630 3-litres Bentley motorcars were made. 1924 saw the introduction of front wheel brakes and also the famous sports four-seater ‘Bentley Speed Model’ by Vanden Plas. Bentley cars are popularly known by the colours of the enamel on their radiator badges – ‘Bentley Red Label’ signifying a Speed Model short-chassis 3-litre, ‘Bentley Blue Label’ the early short, and long chassis which could and sometimes did carry limousine coachwork, and ‘Bentley Green Label’, a special 100mph Bentley type made  in very small numbers.

In 1926 the Bentley company made a bid for the carriage trade with a big Bentley 6½-ltre six for sale on similar lines. A chassis cost £1.450, but the Bentley image made no impression in this market. However, the model was developed into the 180bhp ‘Bentley Speed 6’ of 1929, considered by many to be the best of the old-school Bentleys for sale, and responsible for the firm’s last two Le Mans wins – Barnato/ Clement in 1929, and Barnato/Kidston in 1930. In 1927 the Bentley 3-litre was developed into the Bentley 4½-litre, still with four cylinder, but with a 100bhp engine which was giving 130bhp by the time production ended. This admirable car could exceed 90mph in standard form, and was used by Barnato and Rubin to win LeMans in 1928. A supercharged version was listed in 1930; it had 182bhp, and did not have the approval of Bentley himself, but it was an excellent if thirsty road car, and won Sir Henry Birkin an unexpected 2nd place in the formule libre French G.P. of 1930. Bentley finances were always shaky, and even Woolf Barnato’s aid of 1927 did not last long; the Bentley company went down in the early summer of 1931 to the accompaniment of a splendid gesture – a 220bhp ohc Bentley 8-litre six, made in two wheelbase lengths, 12ft and 13ft. Only 100 of these eight-litres Bentleys were made, plus 50 examples of a rather uninspired inlet over exhaust valve 4-litre car.

Napier made an unsuccessful bid for the assets of the Bentley company, but were beaten by Rolls-Royce, who introduced their version of the Bentley at Olympia in 1933. This was an entirely different type, based on Derby’s contemporary 3.7-litre ohv push-rod ’20-25’. It had a 4-speed synchromesh gearbox, Rolls-Royce servo brakes, and sold for £1.460 with saloon bodywork. In this form, it could reach 90mph and merited its slogan ‘The Silent Sports Car’. It was not raced, of course, apart from E.R. Hall’s three consecutive second places in the T.T. (1934, 1935 and 1936). By 1936 it had grown into a Bentley 4¼-litre, the increase of capacity being necessitated by the rising weight of bespoke coachwork. An overdrive gearbox was standardized in 1939, and the 1940 Bentley Mk V had independent front suspension, though only a handful were made because of the war. The Derby Bentley car’s swansong was a creditable 6th place by H.S.F. Hay at Le Mans in 1949, on a ten-year-old machine with 60.000 road miles behind it. Cylinder capacity was unchanged at 4.257cc in 1946, but independent front suspension, was standard, and Bentely, like Rolls-Royce, had gone over to inlet over exhaust valves. Prices for the Bentley motorcars for sale rose from £2.997 to £4.474 in 1951 for the standard steel saloon, the first Rolls-Royce product to have a regular series-produced factory body.

Thereafter the Rolls-Royce and Bentley identities merges, though in 1952 there was a special ‘Bentley Continental’ version of the latter with fastback 2-door saloon body by H.J. Mulliner which gave 120mph on a 3.077:1 top gear. Capacity went up to 4.6 litres in 1952 and 4.9 litres in 1955. Automatic transmissions, already optional, became standard that year; power-assisted steering and air conditioning followed In 1957, and for 1960 the old six at long last gave way to a 6.2-litre V8 with full overhead valves, by which time only the radiator style distinguished one make from the other. The ‘Bentley Continental’ with separate chassis was discontinued at the end of 1966; 1972 Bentleys were the 6.745cc Bentley T saloon and the Bentley Corniche 2-door saloon and convertible. Even the price differential between the two sister makes was now a thing of the past, the Bentley T-series selling for the same £10.455 as the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow.

Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; MCS

The information is written with the greatest of care. However, if you have any suggested amendments please contact us at office@prewarcar.com