Description
By: Karl Ludvigsen .
Description
Bentley's Great Eight - The Astonishing 50-Year saga of one of history's greatest V-8 engines.
This book by prize-winning author Karl Ludvigsen offers auto enthusiasts a time-travelling adventure. It begins more than a century ago when Rolls-Royce, still in its swaddling clothes, builds one of the world's first V-8 engines. The saga races through decades of engineering experiment and creativity as more V-8 engines are built in Britain while Bentley, famed for its racing exploits at Le Mans, exploits the exotic potential of supercharging.
With the fortunes of Rolls-Royce and Bentley combined, marrying two of the greatest marques in motor-car history, in the 1950s both needed a new engine. Hitherto-secret reports and exclusive interviews take the reader behind the scenes of the new V-8's creation in the factory at Crewe that built the famous Merlin V-12s. With horsepower that is described as 'adequate' — revealed here for the first time — the new all-aluminium eight propels both Bentleys and Rolls-Royces.
In an exciting evolution of the V-8, the need for a sporting engine for Bentleys leads to turbo-supercharging. Introduction of the 300-horsepower Mulsanne Turbo in 1982 is a breakthrough for Bentley, creating the first big high-performance saloon. Here too the reader rides with the engineers as they make this stunning advance in car design. Turbulent years follow when a tug-of-war with BMW finds the VW Group as the new owner of Bentley. VW's resources help bring Bentley's Great Eight to new heights of performance and perfection. 'While we have 250 per cent of the power and torque of the original engine,' says Bentley's chief engineer, 'we also have a reduction in fuel consumption of more than 40 per cent. In addition to this we're also able to talk about a reduction in emissions of 99.5 per cent. I suppose that means that theoretically our new engine could run at idle on the unburned hydrocarbons of the old engine.'
Lavishly illustrated in full colour, these pages portray some of the world's greatest cars from the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud and Corniche to Bentley's Continental, Azure, Arnage, Brooklands and Mulsanne. They introduce the reader to the engineers and executives whose enthusiasm for the Great Eight has not only prolonged the half-century lifetime of one of the world's most accomplished engines but also endowed it with the advanced technologies of the twenty-first century. Bringing its unique perspective to the world of the automobile, Bentley's Great Eight will appeal to all lovers of the history of technology.
