Bentley MkV Corniche: unique prototype reborn

By Martin Buckley

| 16 Feb 2024

Classic & Sports Car – Bentley MkV Corniche: unique prototype reborn

The realm of lost prototypes is a rich seam of fascination in the old-car world.

In truth, most what-might-have-beens were seldom truly ‘lost’, but usually destroyed on purpose – crushed, burned, even buried – out of embarrassment, due to a change of circumstances or simply because their designers came up with a better idea.

The enduring mystique of the long-gone pre-war Bentley Corniche is harder to dismiss.

This outstanding recreation of Bentley’s lost MkV Corniche prototype is true to the original

This graceful, aerodynamic saloon, based on one of the 17 experimental MkVs laid down before WW2, would likely have come to market in 1940 – in much the same form as you see it here – had a certain Mr A Hitler not redirected national priorities in September 1939.

The relatively light, notionally slippery and certainly high-geared Corniche is the missing link between the 1937 Embiricos 4¼-litre and the post-war R-type Continental – a four-seat saloon that, 84 years ago, lapped Brooklands at 111mph and could cruise at 100mph-plus.

The MkV was the first product of the recently formed Rolls-Royce chassis division, and a foretaste of the owner-driver focus of the post-war cars.

The Bentley’s Georges Paulin-designed body was destroyed during WW2

Sales of chauffeur-driven behemoths such as the Phantom III were in decline, and the MkV was an easier to drive, more refined car, with synchromesh on second, third and top, and new wide-based wishbone, low-rate coil-spring independent front suspension.

It was also a move towards a more rational range, in which individual models only differed mechanically in terms of cylinder number and chassis length.

It was even mooted that, as long as quality didn’t suffer, the use of bought-in components might be sanctioned.

This Bentley MkV Corniche’s straight-six engine displaces 4257cc

Doubtless the MkV, and the sporty Corniche variant, would have wowed the crowds at Olympia, but the show was cancelled – as was the car.

Of the 17 ‘standard’ development MkVs completed, seven survive, many having been requisitioned by the government during the war: Earl Howe and ‘Bomber’ Harris used Bentley MkVs as official cars.

Of the 35 chassis built, 18 were scrapped, although Crewe still had MkV parts on the shelf in the 1970s.

Bentley apprentices made the tools for this recreation – they’re stored in the boot with two spare wheels

In the form of the MkVI, R-type, Silver Wraith and Silver Dawn, this rationalisation plan, although very low priority as the factories prepared for war, was deployed post-1945 to form the basis of the successful Crewe-built family of B60-engined cars.

The production MkVIs, R-types, Dawns and Wraiths (plus a handful of straight-eight Phantom IVs) had the F-head’s inlet-over-exhaust arrangement, but the MkVs were powered by a 4257cc, fully overhead-valve engine, like the Derby but with fewer timing gears and tweaked, in the case of the Corniche, with twin exhausts, higher compression and a slightly lumpier camshaft.

A close-ratio gearbox with overdrive and lighter, bolt-on disc wheels were also part of the specification.

‘The theme of this car is speed without any effort or fuss: the minimum of fatigue for both driver and passengers’

The Corniche (chassis 14-BV) was laid down with lightness in mind: its spec included thinner-gauge steel and magnesium-alloy castings where practical.

It was finished in February 1939 and then immediately shipped to Carrosserie Vanvooren, the Parisian coachbuilder that bodied most Rolls-Royces sold in France.

It clothed the first, a Phantom, in 1927.

The Bentley MkV Corniche’s steering wheel dominates its opulent cabin, recreated without reference photos

Rolls-Royce’s engineers, impressed by the French firm’s pillarless coachwork and patented method of body mounting (on rattle-reducing rubber blocks), collaborated on the form of a streamlined body with Georges Paulin, the Paris dentist and talented part-time body designer.

His claims to fame were a design for the first-ever solid-roofed convertible-coupé (Peugeot bought the patent) and the magnificent Embiricos 4¼-litre Bentley, a streamlined, 114mph, Duralumin-bodied coupé.

While not officially sanctioned by Rolls-Royce, this project was encouraged and the results highly regarded at Derby as the way the Bentley needed to go in the ’40s.

The central rev counter and 130mph speedo hint at the Bentley MkV Corniche’s performance

The Corniche, very much officially sanctioned, was the product of this train of thought, described in a post-war Rolls-Royce bulletin as ‘a more practical four-seater car [than the Embiricos] suitable for the discriminative driver’.

Derby’s Ivan Evernden liaised with Paulin on the design.

It was to be a four-door featuring the latest streamlining details: a divided vee ’screen, faired-in headlights, full rear-wheel spats, and a heavily raked and cowled radiator grille.

‘The big saloon slithers smoothly but energetically away in second on just a whiff of throttle’

The Corniche, finished in Imperial Maroon with a Heather Grey side flash, took five months to make, returning to Derby in June 1939 prior to testing at Brooklands, where it did the quarter-mile in 19.8 secs, 10-80mph in 32.7 secs and a one-way best of 111mph.

After being displayed in the factory canteen, the Corniche embarked on endurance testing in France, Germany and Italy just days before war was declared.

GRA 270’s running mate was ‘Big Bertha’, a 170bhp straight-eight, 90mph proposed replacement for the Phantom III that was a full 25% lighter than the V12 car.

The original Bentley MkV Corniche prototype crashed during testing in France, spelling the end for GRA 270 – note the snapped tree trunk!

The Corniche had several tyre failures, but tyres were not to blame for the two accidents in which it was involved.

The damage inflicted by the first encounter (with a bus, on 9 July) was easily beaten out; the second, a month later, ended with the one-off on its side in a ditch.

Its driver had skidded to avoid another vehicle that pulled into its path on a wet road, not far from the Rolls-Royce depot at Châteauroux where endurance testing operations were based.

The Bentley MkV Corniche’s body was sent back to Carrosserie Vanvooren in Paris, following the testing mishap just before WW2, but was destroyed before it could return to the UK

Chassis 14-BV had only been on the road for 50 days and had just 6785 miles on the clock, having successfully been endurance tested in the south of France, stormed the Stelvio and the Dolomites, and executed high-speed runs on the autobahn, where anything longer than 15 minutes at three-figure speeds resulted in a thrown tread (luckily it carried twin spares).

Pictures from the August crash scene show damage to the roof and driver’s-side wings: not terminal, but requiring the chassis and body to be separated for repairs.

The former returned to Derby for straightening, but the latter stayed in France for repairs at Châteauroux.

The original Bentley MkV Corniche prototype’s grille would likely have been contentious in period

From there, world events took over and contact was lost until May 1940, when the keys for the Corniche were returned to Derby.

An accompanying note from the RAC said shipping was not possible and the (repaired) body must have been destroyed in an air raid on Dieppe.

A grim aside to the story is that Paulin was executed by the Nazis in 1942 after being caught spying for the British.

The Bentley MkV Corniche prototype was rebuilt using Georges Paulin’s original drawings

The 1939 Corniche thus became a footnote in Bentley history.

Rolls-Royce revived the name on its 1970s two-door cars, but the original only survived in the form of two or three black-and-white photos.

Nobody was even sure of the original colour scheme, but as the significance and value of the R-type Continental grew, so did the ‘missing link’ mythology of the Corniche.

The Bentley MkV Corniche’s back doors are rear-hinged

It was about two decades ago that marque devotees – chief among them being Ken Lea of the WO Bentley Memorial Foundation – first dreamed of recreating the Corniche, using genuine MkV parts.

That dream began to take tangible shape when a lightweight MkV chassis was found and restored, along with an engine and drivetrain.

The key to recreating the body came when foundation members contacted the family of Georges Paulin.

The Bentley MkV Corniche prototype has a driver-focused cabin

They had retained his archive, and gave Ken and his team access to the original drawings of the Corniche, which meant an accurate replica of the body could be worked up in aluminium over an ash frame using traditional panelbeating and English wheel techniques.

The superb results are testimony to the skills of Ashley & James Coachbuilding of Lymington, Hampshire.

Only when funds to finish the project ran out a few years ago did Bentley Motors officially step in to help.

Bentley boss Adrian Hallmark understood the significance of the car and bought it for the firm’s Heritage Collection, on the proviso that, with Lea overseeing, it would be completed in time to take part in the 2019 centenary celebrations.

The Bentley’s ignition control is on the steering-wheel boss

With the project in-house, Bentley could put its resources and internal skillsets behind reproducing body detail trim, paintwork and the interior.

There were no photos of the original cabin, so its recreation has been the work of both research into Vanvooren and supposition by Bentley’s chief of interior design, Darren Day.

Perhaps more arresting than beautiful, the Corniche looks best in rear-three-quarter view, a low and hunched statement of late-1930s streamlining theory cast in the mould of the Sir Nigel Gresley A4 Pacific locomotive Mallard, but not so Streamline Moderne that it would have looked out of place in the early 1950s.

The Bentley MkV Corniche’s bonnet narrows behind the prominent front wings, as on the original car

At the front, your eye is drawn to the faired-in lights – surely inspired by the 1936 Panhard et Levassor Dynamic – and ventilation slats flowing either side of the dummy outline of a reclining Bentley grille.

Progressive types (likely not those who could afford a Bentley) would have seen the benefits of a design that offered less wind resistance on Europe’s new high-speed roads.

Paying customers might have seen things differently, and I can’t help thinking a compromise would have been found on the production Corniche, had it appeared.

The Bentley’s grille tapers rearwards, between engine bay and wheelarch

Half the length of the car appears to be taken up by its bonnet, the size accentuated by the long, tapering front wings.

There are no running boards and, true to Vanvooren’s reputation, the back doors are rear-hinged for an open-plan, pillarless effect.

The twin ’screens are narrow – for a beetle-browed impression inside – and top-hinged for ventilation, with a touch of the Cord 810 about them.

The tiny twin rear windows have their own sprung blind, operated by the driver.

The original Bentley MkV Corniche prototype was good for 111mph at Brooklands

There are twin fuel fillers in the rear mudguards for the 16-gallon petrol tank and small, teardrop-shaped chromed indicator pods mounted low in the wings.

The externally hinged bootlid opens upwards on elaborate, self-locking sprung struts, revealing a fairly narrow load area (did Bentley owners, like their Rolls-Royce counterparts, send the luggage ahead by rail?) with a polished wooden floor worthy of a Riva speedboat.

Highlights include a beautifully presented set of large tools, lovingly recreated by modern-day Bentley apprentices – grease gun, wheelbrace and so on – and a smaller set of ‘touring’ spares in the floor of the boot.

You sit on Connolly Vaumol leather with a solid slab of walnut ahead that is repeated on the cant rails of the doors.

The Bentley’s split windscreen is top-hinged for ventilation

Chrome door furniture, West of England cloth and maroon Wilton carpets are the dominant materials.

There is the usual Rolls-Royce-type switch-box for the ignition and lights, with mixture and advance/retard settings on the boss of the big steering wheel. A Smiths heater sits under the dash – venting to chrome outlets to clear the ’screens – while the minuscule dimensions of the rear-view mirror are immaterial because you can’t see much out of the windows anyway.

The 130mph speedometer and 5000rpm rev counter hint at the potential of this near-90-year-old car, which starts readily and ticks over slowly and sweetly, having had a thorough sorting by P&A Wood after its Salon Privé debut in 2019.

The Bentley MkV Corniche has body-coloured disc wheels

Mike Sayer, custodian of Bentley’s Heritage Collection, has a rule that all of the cars should be usable, and the Corniche really is.

For Adrian Hallmark, the Corniche is his favourite drive of the entire old-car fleet. I can see why.

With its smooth, light controls there is nothing intimidating about it, other than the sense you are driving a one-of-one.

The massive steering wheel, to which you sit quite close and shuffle between locks with a feeding technique, feels of another age.

But its action is smooth, and you know exactly what the front wheels are doing and are likely to do.

The discovery of a lightweight Bentley MkV chassis, engine and drivetrain formed the basis for this special recreation

First gear, in the buttery right-handed shift, is really for hill starts: the big saloon slithers smoothly but energetically away in second on just a whiff of throttle.

Torque is bountiful, and for 90% of the time you only really need third and top ratios, taking the load off the synchro rings with the occasional double-declutched downshift.

The revs pick up keenly, and you sense that the Corniche is relatively light as it whispers forward with surprising alacrity, and a remarkable lack of creaks and rattles from this freshly built body.

There is a hint of throatiness from the exhausts, but the theme of this car is speed without effort or fuss.

Despite the Bentley MkV Corniche’s size, it’s not intimidating to drive

The aim is the minimum of fatigue for both driver and passengers, not only in the way the Corniche slips through the air, but also in the unruffled manner with which it can negotiate bumpy roads, carry its speed through corners, and pull up straight and strong when required with its gearbox-driven servo brakes.

You could not reasonably expect better anchors on a pre-war car.

The Corniche would establish the standards of refinement and behaviour that Crewe production cars maintained throughout the 1950s, but it did so with an emphasis on performance that was the inspiration for the R-type Continental.

Far from trying to forget the Corniche adventure, the loss of the car was always keenly felt – and its story proudly recounted – by the teams at Derby and Crewe.

‘More arresting than beautiful, the Corniche is a low and hunched statement of late ’30s streamlining theory’

Nazi bombs destroyed the bodywork of the one and only completed example in 1939, but it would take a German company (in the form of VW, which now owns the British marque) to get this amazing recreation finished in time for Bentley’s 2019 centenary.

A lovely footnote to all of the above is the recent discovery, by a process of elimination, that the chassis is not merely one of the four lightweights, but the actual one used by the ’39 Corniche.

It was only in proving this fact that Bentley Motors was able to persuade the DVLA to issue the Corniche with its original numberplate.

Images: John Bradshaw

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