Southern Tablelands Heritage Automotive Restorers Club Inc.

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10^th Anniversary Dinner July 2011	Car of the Month

Jane Nock’s 1960

Bentley S2

Article and photos by Lawrie and Jane Nock.

1960 Bentley S2

I have always liked old cars. They appeal to my pocket. The cost of new ones and the rapid loss of value in their early years are hard to deal with, so buying a good second hand one is looked at by people such as myself as a cost effective option. Coming from a motor business background and having driven older cars for many years, I am already aware of some of the problems associated with reliability and repairs to older cars.

Our fellow club member Ian McLeish for many years had an old Chev in his shed. He then went out and joined STHARC. He seemed to be having a good time and regularly filled us in on his adventures.

Following my retirement I was having a lovely time settling into idleness. Jane was watching and didn’t altogether approve of the direction of the flow. She announced that she wasn’t ready to be living with a hermit and I thought “why should she – she already has me.” That seemed to be her problem so she decided that we needed to get an external interest. Old cars and STHARC was an obvious choice as we already had a few friends in the club.

Ian regularly gets the cars for sale catalogues and there had always been desirables on the market. Unfortunately the most desirables always had price tags reflecting the desirability. Then one day he casually mentioned that there was a Rolls advertised for less than $10,000. That seemed too cheap but it was worth looking into. I stupidly reasoned that if I was going to have to spend money to keep an old car on the road I might as well pay a little bit of a premium and go for the top shelf stuff.

We eventually found a Rolls advertised for under $10,000 in Sydney. When we looked at it I thought it was quite nice but the dealer didn’t and strongly advised me against buying it. Meanwhile Jane was snooping around the warehouse looking at the other cars. She wasn’t looking at the E-Types or the Porsche or the Corniche drophead. She had her sights set on a 1960 Bentley.

I started out with yes it is very pretty but we don’t need the problems associated with a car of that age. Not good enough Lawrie. It was only a bit more than 3 times the price of what I came to look at but “it’s the only car here that I really like” and “I can do the restoration work needed on the woodwork.”

The dealer pointed out that when you drive this car it is a real attention grabber. Good one Charles, that’s the last thing we actually need. He then proceeded to prove his point with a test run around Botany. Jane agreed that we didn’t need a show car either which went down really well with me at the time. I didn’t appreciate that it made no difference to the debate.

We took a few pictures and came home. A bit of ogling of the pictures back at home soon convinced us that this would indeed be a nice car to use so we committed to the purchase. At this stage we weren’t even members of a car club so it languished at home for a while until we could arrange the historic registration.

The thing leaked like a sieve in the rain when we first encountered wet weather. Not much of a problem over any of the last 7 or 8 years and certainly not during most of the 3 years or so we have owned it, but very annoying on the rare occasions when it did rain, so we fixed it. Like it hot, well this is the right car for the job. No air conditioning and a design inspired by an English climate. Great when it is cold too. The heaters work really well.

Jane has restored the woodwork inside and we have replaced a few minor body trim items such as window runners. A new fuel pump, starter motor and that is about all the work we have had to do until recently.

Was it worth it? Yeah. This car is an S2 Bentley. The S2 Bentley and Silver Cloud II Rolls Royce vehicles were the first of the factory bodied Crewe cars to be fitted with a V8 engine. At 6.23 litres displacement, it is only the little V8. Had I been able to afford one of these when I was young and stupid enough to drive it to the limit I might not have been here to own the car to-day. It goes really well and much faster than I am game to find out. The fitting of the V8 engine was necessary to keep up with the demands of the predominantly USA market for Rolls Royce motor cars back in the late1950s. The engine and gear box combination used was actually destined for the next generation Rolls and Bentley to be known as the Silver Shadow and Bentley T series but was used to extend the life of the older body design while the development of the new design was completed.

The V8 motor is not what you would call a comfortable fit into the engine bay which was originally designed to accommodate a straight 6 engine. The fact that they got it in there at all is a testimony to British ingenuity. The fact that it was over 15 kilograms lighter than the engine it replaced was also a pretty neat trick. Of course there are a few compromises. If for example you need to change the spark plugs the task is easily achieved by removing the front wheel and removable valance inside the wheel arch and attacking the job from below. No point in looking for short cuts – there is no other way unless you have arms like an orang-utan.

The factory bodied Rolls and Bentley cars are actually a pretty good compromise. Not quite as exclusive and in some cases significantly less luxurious in fit out than the bodies built by specialist body builders, they offered an exceptionally high level of finish which allowed the company to persist with its claim to be the producer of the best car in the world. No matter how much other manufacturers may insist otherwise about the facts, Rolls Royce won the debate in the public eye.

While they are magnificent to ride in and quite good fun to drive they are not without their faults. It is quite likely that some aspects of the cars design would not have been approved for use in any other make of vehicle intended to be driven on Australian roads. The fact that Rolls Royce got away with it is testimony to the marque’s awesome reputation.

By comparison, the next series released in 1965 was the benchmark in engineering for the automotive industry. Following the release, what would previously have been obscene remarks bordering on treason were passed on the beautiful Cloud and S series cars. It was commonly said that the new vehicles were the first modern vehicles released by the company in over 50 years and they were probably right. But do the later models look as good as their more antiquated relatives – not bloody likely.

Apart from normal club outings, we have used our Crewe cars for a few weddings and formals for family members, friends and their children. It is interesting how many people choose the Bentley over any of our other cars.

We have been without this car for a long time now while fellow club member Bill Coburn has been sorting out the culmination of about 50 years of “maintenance” activity. He recently advised that the person who had fitted one of the cleverly hidden pins associated with the braking system had used precisely the correct gauge of nail instead of the more commonly used split pin. He has discovered other interesting non standard fitments in his journey.

This beautiful beast duly returned to the road only to suffer drive line indignities (see Bentley’s Back) which were resolved and even more recently, properly rectified by extensive exhaust attention.

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