Bentley Blowers Once Again Taking on Classic Mille Miglia Challenge

Bentley Motors is competing in Mille Miglia 2014 (May 15‑18) with two of the company’s famous 4.5-liter supercharged ‘Blowers’ taking on the 1,700 km route. The 1930 Le Mans ‘Team Car’ once owned by Sir Henry ‘Tim’ Birkin, one of the most celebrated members of a group of British gentlemen racers known as the Bentley Boys, will be joined by a former company demonstrator Blower with its original Vanden Plas Open, Sports Four Seater body for this renowned race.

In 2013, one of every four luxury cars delivered to consumers around the world was a Bentley. Last year was a record year for the company, with global deliveries increasing by 19% over 2012. By the end of 2013, Bentley had almost 200 dealerships in 54 countries. So it is not surprising that, even after nine decades of putting the Bentley brand on roads around the world, this second Blower continues to delight customers and guests from around the world with demonstration drives during visits to Bentley’s Crewe Headquarters.

Bentley Motors’ headquarters in Crewe is home to all of its operations including design, R&D, engineering and production of the company’s three model lines, Continental, Flying Spur and Mulsanne. Bentley employs approximately 3,700 people at Crewe, and continues to hand down the skills necessary to produce this iconic British luxury brand.

Both Bentleys have successfully completed the modern Mille Miglia challenge several times and, with their classic dark green livery and distinctive, rumbling exhaust note, they’re welcomed by the thousands of fans who line the route to support the drivers.

To celebrate the start of Mille Miglia 2014, the Bentley team will meet with customers and friends from the Bentley Drivers Club (www.bdcl.co.uk) in the city of Brescia on the afternoon before the race. The pre-race gathering will see Bentley owners who have travelled from as far afield as Australia, Hong Kong, South Africa, the United States as well as the United Kingdom meet the Blowers and bring their own cars to create a unique line-up of machines bearing the famous Winged B emblem in Italy. Steve Miller, club secretary of the Bentley Drivers Club, said the start will be something to see:

We plan to see Bentley’s Blowers and their drivers off in style. There will be Bentleys from all eras, some of them extremely rare, in Brescia to mark the start of Mille Miglia and it should be a real celebration of great cars.

Live updates from Mille Miglia 2014 will be provided over the course of the event via the Bentley Communications Twitter feed, @BentleyComms.