Mincemeat man's motor

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In those years of rose-tinged peace before Germany moved into Poland, there was nothing the young Charles Cholmondeley liked better than stumbling around the countryside in a warm October haze, despatching partridges with a revolver. Equally, he relished the drive home behind the wheel of his imposing Eight Litre Bentley, an enviable mount for a man of just 20.

Bentley

Despite his unconventional fowling habits, Cholmondeley’s lofty frame housed a mind of rare perspicacity, which had its chance to shine when he worked on Operation Mincemeat, one of the most famous episodes of espionage during the Second World War.

His car was chassis YX5117, one of the very last W O Bentleys, assembled in 1932 by Jack Barclay. Originally a Gurney Nutting saloon, it had ceased to be especially handsome by 1936, when it is suspected it incurred major damage somehow. It was bought then by Rolls-Royce and Bentley sales and tuning specialist McKenzie’s Garage Ltd, where the engine was extensively tuned, and Corsica rebodied it as an open tourer.

Cholmondeley did not acquire the car until 1939, when he just had time to run it in the Lewes Speed Trials before war ended motoring as a pastime. In the 1950s, it was purchased by Briggs Cunningham, who had McKenzie alter the body slightly to make it ‘a Concours d’Elegance job’, and so it survives today.

David Burgess-Wise tells the full story of this Bentley and its remarkable intelligence-service owner in the June issue of The Automobile, on sale now.

Words Zack Stiling. Photograph Peter Harholdt.

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