100 years since the first race win for a Bentley, the winning car itself \u2013 known as EXP2 \u2013returned to the famous Brooklands Racetrack in Surrey to lead a cavalcade of 3-Litre Bentleys to celebrate the centenary of its victory.<\/p>
EXP2 is the oldest Bentley in the world, and only the second car ever built by W.O. Bentley\u2019s fledgling company in 1921. EXP2 led a field of 24 3-Litres from across the country, which formed up on the remaining section of the banked Brooklands circuit where Bentley took its first ever win back in 1921. The car took victory in the Whitsun Junior Sprint Handicap at the hands of \u2018works\u2019 driver Frank Clement, starting a series of race wins for the 3-Litre model that culminated in two victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans \u2013 Bentley\u2019s first in 1924, driven by Clement and John Duff, and again in 1927. Between those successes, in 1925 Duff also used a 3-Litre to secure a total of 21 world records over the course of 24 hours.<\/p>
These early victories for the 3-Litre engrained motorsport in the foundations of Bentley, and paved for the way for more than 1,600 3-Litre models to be produced and sold.<\/p>
The collection of 3-Litres and the event itself was organised by the Bentley Drivers\u2019 Club, whose chairman Richard Parkinson comments: \u201cMotorsport success is a huge part of Bentley\u2019s heritage, as it is for the Bentley Drivers Club. We were therefore determined to mark the centenary of the first Bentley racing win at Brooklands this year with the actual car, EXP2 itself, kindly provided by Bentley Motors.\u201d<\/p>
EXP2 \u2013 The Oldest Bentley in the World<\/strong><\/p> After founding his company in 1919, it took two years for W.O. Bentley to develop the engine and chassis of his first production model \u2013 the 3-Litre, a car that he went on to produce 1,622 examples of between 1921 and 1929. Crucial to that development programme were the Experimentals \u2013 or EXPs for short. EXP1 came first, and was the very first car to wear the Bentley badge. EXP2 was next, and while EXP1 was lost to history (and may well have been cannibalised to create the other EXPs), EXP2 has survived for a century as the oldest Bentley in existence.<\/p> EXP2 was originally constructed with a plain two-seat body, to serve its function as a development testbed for the engine \u2013 incredibly advanced for its time \u2013 and chassis. It was later rebodied with dark red bodywork and an aluminium bonnet, crafted by coachbuilders JH Easter of Chagford Street.<\/p> It\u2019s first race was only nine days before its first win. At the hands of Frank Clement, it competed at Brooklands but failed to finish. Whatever gremlins had disturbed that first race were banished by the following weekend, and when the car took to the track again it came home victorious for the first time.<\/p> EXP2 carried on with its split career of development testing and racing for two years, before being sold in September 1923. The car was completely rebuilt to its original specification around 25 years ago, and is now one of the most important members of the Bentley Heritage Collection. 100 years since the first race win for a Bentley, the winning car itself \u2013 known as EXP2 \u2013returned to the famous Brooklands Racetrack in Surrey to lead a cavalcade of 3-Litre Bentleys to celebrate the centenary of its victory. EXP2 is the oldest Bentley in the world, and only the second car ever built […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13830,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13828"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13831,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13828\/revisions\/13831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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