Subscribe to RSS
Subscribe to our Newsletter

Join us for:

Unsubscribe
Manage Your Subscription

  Photography by Cordero Studios

Feature: Bully for Bentley

Christian Gulliksen

February 1, 2005

Gary Wales started his career as a collector with a bang: While on a blind date he totaled his car. “Coming home from the hospital on the bus, I said to my date that I needed a new car, something that handled better than the last one,” he recalls. She recommended a hemi-powered Allard. “I fell in love with the car, and I fell in love with the girl,” says Wales. “I still have the girl.” (Click image to enlarge) 

The Allard was only the first in a series of interesting cars in the Wales garage, and for a time he chose Ferraris as his primary focus. “I bought Ferraris when no one wanted them,” he says. In the late 1960s he acquired the Breadvan–an aerodynamically bodied short-wheelbase 250 GT–for $3,000 and shortly thereafter sold it to Sonny Bono for $7,000. Bono abandoned the car on Sunset Boulevard after running out of gas, and Wales took it back. He later found another buyer willing to pay $4,500. “At least I still made fifty percent on my money,” he says philosophically. (The Breadvan last traded hands for $5 million.) (Click image to enlarge)

This stunning Mark VI, bodied by Franay, is easily one of the most important Bentleys ever built. Frogskin adorns the dash and seats. (Click images to enlarge)

Wales found the gospel of Bentley 26 years ago when he traded a Talbot-Lago for a 1947 Bentley Mark VI with coachwork by Franay. “It was a hulk,” he says. “It had no chrome, no lights. Everything needed work.” Its design, how­ever, was nonpareil. Only a few Bentleys received coachwork from the French concern, and the convertible’s sweeping Art Deco lines harked back to designs produced between the World Wars. The enclosed wheel wells and wavelike chrome accents gave the Mark VI a look unlike anything produced for Bentleys by the more usual English coachbuilders of the era, and demonstrated the unique Gallic ability to make the outrageous supremely elegant. Wales restored the car and took it to Pebble Beach in 1991, where it won first place in its class and came within a breath of winning Best of Show. “They announced three times over the loudspeakers that it missed winning Best of Show by one point,” says Wales. The Mark VI went on to win a number of prizes at other concours events; most recently it earned the Best of the Best award at Palos Verdes, competing against the Best of Show cars from the last 10 years. But according to Wales, his most coveted prizes are the People’s Choice awards. “Everyone loves this car. It’s an over-the-top crowd pleaser,” he says. Indeed, Franklin Mint even has a model of this Mark VI currently in production.

For his next project, Wales decided to try something new. “I restored and restored and restored,” he says. “I got tired of fixing up other people’s cars. It’s more fun to build your own car, and I thought, ‘I can improve on this.’ It’s what Henry Royce did. He built a better mousetrap.” With that philosophy, Wales began his Royale, a car that incorporates an element from every Rolls-Royce/Bentley series from the Silver Ghost to the Turbo R. “I wanted to build a car that showcased a continuous history of the marques from the preteens up to the current day,” he says. Built on the frame of a 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith, the Royale obtains its power from a pair of straight-eight engines designed for the Phantom IV, mounted side by side. “Believe me, they both run,” says Wales. Playing on the old Rolls-Royce custom of stating horsepower as “adequate,” he refers to output from the Royale’s engines as “more than adequate.” A 4-speed manual transmission and clutch are vintage 1950s, and Wales installed two radiators to keep everything cool. The car’s body is notable for fenders from a Rolls-Royce Phantom I that Wales reshaped, and an antique Lalique mascot consistent with the car’s styling. Ensuring that a representative of each series made it into the Royale sometimes necessitated using small details; for example, valve covers use a logo from a Bentley S3 and caps for oil spouts come from a Bentley 3.5 Litre and a Bentley 4.25 Litre. Despite the disparate origins of the Royale’s parts, Wales created a car that could easily pass for vintage–perhaps because, in large part, it is. He also was successful because he paid close attention to the car’s proportions. “Getting the proportions right is so important,” he says. “If you’re off by just one inch, it can look wrong.” (Click image to enlarge)

The Royale inspired Wales to take on yet another challenge: the seven-year project of producing his Aero Car, loosely adapted from the Blue Train Bentley built in 1930 for Bentley’s then-Chairman Woolf Barnato. The original car, now owned by collector Bruce McCaw, garnered its nickname from Barnato’s feat of supposedly driving it from Cannes, France, to Calais more quickly than the Blue Train locomotive could make the trip. (Barnato did beat the train, but in a different car–the name has stuck, though.) “I loved the Blue Train but they just didn’t make any of them,” says Wales. For his version, Wales started with a Phantom II chassis and found a straight-eight engine that he blueprinted and supercharged. Wales built this one for comfort, with power steering, power brakes, air-conditioning, an adjustable suspension, and a manual transmission with fifth-gear overdrive. Like the Royale, the Aero Car benefits from twin radiators. “I can cruise in that car at 80 mph on an 80-degree day with the air-conditioning at full blast,” he says. “It never overheats.” He drove the car from Los Angeles to Pebble Beach and back last August without any trouble. For open-air enjoyment, he devised a Gurney Nutting—type solid roof that can be opened in various positions. “It took a lot of engineering. It was all custom-designed and built for me,” he says. The Aero Car’s driver faces an impressive dashboard. Says Wales, “I built the car with a massive amount of gauges. Some aren’t functional, but they look good. One of the warning lights is a sapphire.” A violin maker in Devon, England, crafted the structural and decorative woodwork; elm veneer inside the cabin features inlay of silver and mother-of-pearl. (The Aero Car made several trips to England during its construction.) The rear compartment has not one but two liquor cabinets. “One is for single malts, and one is for blends,” he jokes. (Click image to enlarge)

The Royale incorporates an element of every Rolls-Royce/Bentley series from the Silver Ghost to the Turbo R. (Click image to enlarge)

I first learned about these cars from a colleague, who told me there was a Bentley collection in the San Fer­nando Valley that I should see. As a longtime admirer of all things Bentley, that was all I needed to hear. When I was told that they were not all original, though, I hesitated. I generally like my cars “stock,” and though I’m not a die-hard purist, I tend to regard custom-built cars such as the Royale and the Aero Car with some suspicion. As I pulled up to Wales’ rambling hacienda in the San Fernando Valley, I did so with a fair degree of skepticism. But after seeing the cars, and experiencing Wales’ passion for the marque, I realized that they have nothing in common with fiberglass-bodied replicas or Silver Shadows powered by Chevy 350 V-8s. They are true to the spirit of Bentley and painstakingly built of authentic components; Wales could pass the cars off as the real thing to all but experts, but he doesn’t. Instead he regales viewers with each part’s provenance, delighting in how well the components go together. And parked in his garage beside an Arnage and the pedigreed Franay, the Royale and the Aero Car look just right. They’re not for everyone, but neither are 100-point show cars. Only a few hours after my arrival, I left deeply impressed with Wales’ handiwork, and with a more open-minded attitude toward one-off “classics” like these. (Click image to enlarge)

Behind the Aero Car’s vintage facade are power steering, power brakes and air conditioning. (Click image to enlarge)

As Wales has decided to sell the automotive trio, you have the opportunity to be impressed as well. After owning the Mark VI with Franay coachwork for 26 years, he has put it on the market for $2.5 million. (A relative bargain when compared with the heady $5.8 million offer he received in 1990.) He will part with the Royale for $500,000, and with the Aero Car for $1.2 million. Especially considering the “vintage” of the latter two, you might be surprised at their drivability under modern road conditions when compared to straight-up originals. Wales stresses that he built the cars without any intention of selling them. “I didn’t build them only to turn them over,” he says. “I did it for the love of doing it.” He is also breaking up his massive collection of badges, mascots, and paraphernalia, which consists of several thousand pieces. They currently cover the walls of his home and sizable shop and occupy numerous display cases and drawers throughout the property. The collection is not exclusive to those marques, although Bentley and Rolls-Royce are heavily represented. If you don’t have the space for a 5,000-pound automobile, a badge might be an amenable appetizer. (Click image to enlarge)

Gary Wales
818.887.6557
www.ebentley.com

Print ArticleEmail ArticleAdd to DiggAdd to Del.icio.us