Someone get the Trading Standards police on the, erm, blower: the latest model from Oxfordshire’s The Little Car Company is not very little at all. It’s massive.
Welcome to the Bentley Blower Jnr, an 85 per cent scale recreation of the legendary 1929 supercharged racing car. The real deal – valued today at R605 million – was powered by a 4.5-litre, 240bhp engine that belched fire and singed eyebrows. This (slightly) shrunken version, which measures a whopping 3.7 metres long and 1.5 metres wide, is a bit more easy-going.
It’s powered by a 20bhp electric motor driving the rear wheels, giving a top speed of 72kph (limited to just 40kph in the USA because of lawyers'n'stuff). A full charge should get you up to 110 kilometer away from where you started.
And because it’s quite quick and goes quite far, you're thinking “my garden isn’t really big enough to let my Blower Jnr stretch its legs.”
Worry not. The car is in fact road legal in Britain, the EU and the USA (well done lawyers) so you can commute in it. And bring along a tandem-riding passenger for fun. Pip-pip!
Because the motor is housed on the back axle and the batteries are slung underneath, there’s little but fresh air behind the beautiful bonnet louvres. However, there are lots of authentic details to coo over: the repurposed instrument dials, the string-wrapped steering wheel, and the charging socket at the front, masquerading as the iconic ‘blower’ supercharger.
And it’s more grown-up than you might think, kids. The rear half of the bodywork is made from carbon fibre, which would’ve seemed about as possible as space travel or TikTok in 1929. There’s a USB charger and built in sat-nav plus a reversing camera. To keep the American lawyers happy, y’see. The front brakes come from Brembo. And if the wind is ruffling your leather cap a little too roughly, simply turn down the power.
Yes, it has driving modes. Sport delivers the full 20bhp, but you can dilute that in Bentley or Comfort mode. And simply gaze at the turned aluminium dashboard. If you can focus on it. The Little Car Co says the friction dampers and leaf springs have been tuned to deliver a comfy ride but, well, you don’t see Rolls-Royce or modern-day Bentley using them, do you?
If you’re quick you can bag a First Edition example of the Blower Jnr. The first 99 built will be adorned with Union Jack-painted doors and much 1st Ed badging. You even get the same leather upholstery used by Bentley’s Mulliner division when it was making the full-size continuation Blowers.
Question is, what to do with such an enormous toy? Drive it to Le Mans like the good ol’ days? You’re going to need quite a few charging stops old sport. Hire a go-kart track? Bit uncouth. Just commute in it we reckon. Bear down upon helpless Citroen Amis like an absolute bounder.
Oh, and the price? Well that’s likely to be around R2.25 million. Plus tax. Plus delivery. Plus optional extras. But when you make the only fully-electric officially Bentley-endorsed road-legal scale model Blower racer in the world, you can probably charge whatever you like...
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