A Bentley to Africa

When a life ends, a general uncluttering occurs, and old things float to the top. 

 

One such thing that floated to the top this weekend was a letter to my father, dated March 9, 1967 from "David Scott-Montcrieff  & Son LTD."  

 

The strap line under the company's name: "Purveyor's of Horseless Carriages to the Nobility and Gentry Since 1927."

 

Horseless carriages! 

 

Purveyors! 

 

Nobility and Gentry! 

 

Oh my, this was going to be interesting.  You see, my father was the son of Appalachia made good in the U.S. Foreign Service. Though he had already had diplomatic assignments to Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Zimbabwe, Mali and Tunisia, our people are not too much for fluff and feathers.  Nobility and gentry?  Oh right; the people our great, great grandfathers shot.

 

But might we be interested in a very cool car? Oh sure!

 

It seems that in 1967 my father and mother were soon to go back overseas and were looking to buy a pre-War Bentley or Rolls Royce in England to take with them to Morocco.  This was in 1967, so a 1937 car was only 30 years old back then.  Think of this then as the financial equivalent of buying a 1982 Cadillac today.  In 1967, a 1937  Rolls or Bentley could be had for as little as 350 pounds sterling and a near-cherry car could be had for 1,000.

 

My father's original letters of inquiry are lost, but the reply letter back from Montcrieff, composed on a manual typewriter, starts off : 

Dear Mr. Burns,

By some curious quirk of fate I had just returned from Tangiers and Morocco when your letter of 5th March came in.  Frankly, I am not at all happy about your idea.  The arabs, as you probably know, are the very worst and most brutal of mechanics in the world and however good a Bentley you took out there I tremble to think what it would be like after being service for a year by arab mechanics.  However, I don't want to be too depressing because you may find a Frenchman or an Italian still practicing there, or if the worse comes to the worse, from Tangiers you could always take it across to Spain, as far as I can remember, it only costs about $20 or $30 and in Spain there are any number of really first rate mechanics...

A bit more can be read from the partial scan, below.

 

 

 

Suffice it to say that the warning about service fell on deaf ears, in part because my father looked down on no one and, in part, because he really wanted a pre-War Bentley.  As we found out, there were competent enough mechanics in Morocco and Algeria to service the simple and very reliable Rolls Royce engines of 1937 -- no problems there!

 

In the end, we ended up acquiring a 1937 Bentley 4 1/4 Litre H-J. Mulliner Pillarless Saloon, Chassis Number B163JY from Paddon Brothers LTD of 60, Cheval Place, Brompton Road, London.

   

Paddon Brothers gave us very good service, sending out several sets of tires, an occasional spare key, touchup paint, bulbs for the headlights, leather dressing for the seats, and such. 

 

And as for the car, it ran like a top. 

 

We never had a moment's trouble as we spun through England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Libya, Switzerland, Morocco, and Algeria.  

 

The car climbed Furka Pass like a gazelle with my father hissing wine into his throat straight out of a Bota. 

 

The car likewise ploughed through blowing sands and scorching heat in Morocco and Algeria with nothing more than a pair of women's nylons pulled tight across the air filter.

 

So where is this car today?  We could not get it out of Algeria, and so sold it to an American who stayed in country.  He took it (or had it taken) over the border into Morocco, and that was the last I heard of it.

 

A quick search on the Internet, however, finds that the same car as the one pictured above in Tangier in 1969, was sold 33 years later, in 2002, in Wales, stripped down to primer over its cast aluminum body, and the headlights removed for body service. 

 

I suspect the car has now been fully restored and is top-flight condition, but where is it?

1937 Bentley Chassis Number B163JY, where are you?

 

 

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