Bentley team welcomes a very special guest

A national newspaper competition organised by Bentley Pangbourne resulted in a fascinating meeting of Bentley past and present when the winner, Johnnie Hutton, proved to be a relative of the founder of the world-famous British car company – W.O. Bentley.

Paul King, senior manager of the flagship Bentley dealership, said: "The competition received a huge response as we were offering the opportunity to drive some of the very latest Bentleys, so we asked everyone to provide an interesting reason as to why they’d like to win the prize as a final tie-breaker.

You can imagine our team’s surprise when we received John’s lovely response which told us his grandmother had been married to W.O. Bentley but he’d never actually driven a Bentley. Needless to say, we felt it was high time John had that first drive."

Johnnie, who joined the Bentley Pangbourne team for a day of exciting and challenging driving exercises in cars like the Continental GT and Continental Flying Spur, commented:

"I really did not expect to win so it was a great surprise to spend an entire day driving Bentleys with a professional instructor, meeting the skilled craftsmen from Crewe and learning about the many legends surrounding Bentley."

Johnnie, who is agency director of Berry Bros & Rudd Ltd, the highly respected family-owned wine business in St. James’s (London), added: "W.O. Bentley, having married my paternal grandmother in the early ’30s, was to me more of a grandfather than step-grandfather and I can remember spending many happy times with him throughout my childhood and teenage years. In particular, I remember how modest and shy he was and even today I realise he is still held in high regard by motoring enthusiasts and how passionate people are about the company he created.

"The modern Bentleys I experienced certainly lived up to his vision of building fast and beautifully designed cars that owners would always want to drive."

Bentley Pangbourne is Bentley’s official dealership for the Thames Valley region and offers the Continental GT and Continental Flying Spur, the Azure and prestigious Arnage cars. Later this year the dealership will take delivery of the new Continental GTC, Bentley’s highly-acclaimed 2+2 convertible, which offers drivers over 550bhp from its W12 twin-turbocharged 6-litre engine.