Mould King British 4½ Litre Super Luxury Car Set 27105

Mould King's British 4½ Litre Super Luxury Car is an 8-stud-wide model built from around 320 blocks, with functional steering, a detailed dashboard with printed dials, a three-spoke steering wheel and a gear lever. A clear, stackable display case is included.

The supercharger was a mistake, and it made the car famous

The supercharged 4½ Litre Bentley — the Blower — is the most recognisable British car of the 1920s, and the man who built Bentleys thought it was a bad idea.

W. O. Bentley believed the way to more power was a bigger engine, and he said forcing air into an existing one was perverting his design. He refused to build it.

Tim Birkin, a racing driver with more conviction than patience, had it done anyway — financed by Dorothy Paget, a wealthy heiress who bankrolled the whole project. Fifty-five were built to satisfy the racing regulations, with the huge supercharger hung off the front of the chassis in front of the radiator, which is exactly why the car looks the way it does.

W. O. was right. The Blower was fast and broke constantly, and it never won Le Mans. The car that won, repeatedly, was his own unsupercharged Speed Six.

And yet it is the Blower everyone draws. It is the Bentley in Ian Fleming's novels, the one in every illustration of the Bentley Boys, and in 2020 the company built twelve continuation cars from the original drawings. The failure outlived the success by a century.

What you get

A long sweeping bonnet, a chrome-style grille, twin headlamps and exposed engine elements, with body lines scaled to the original. The interior carries printed instrument dials rather than stickers.

Specifications

Pieces: approx. 320 · 8 studs wide · Functional steering · Stackable display case included