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09 August 2007
Vintage Bentley cars at the Peking-to-Paris Rally 2007
Fourteen Vintage Bentley cars participated in the 2007 Peking-to-Paris Rally, which began in Peking on May 27, 2007, and ended on June 30th. The race is a reenactment of the original "great race" of 1907, the first transcontinental motor rally.
Fourteen
Vintage Bentley cars participated in the 2007 Peking-to-Paris
Rally which began in Peking on May 27, 2007, and ended
on June 30th. The race is a reenactment of the original
"great race" of 1907, the first transcontinental
motor rally.
According to www.PekingParis.com, the official website
for the race, "It had been an epic challenge between
a Prince and a Pauper - Prince Borghese had the best
funded entry and carefully researched the conditions
of setting out on a journey where the first 5,000 miles
saw no roads, at all, so, no maps and no garages. His
chief rival was a fair-ground worker who until he read
news of the race in a Paris newspaper, Le Matin, picked
up blowing in the wind, he had never even sat in a motor-car,
so had no idea how to drive one."
The 2007 rally included twenty-two Bentley cars, fourteen
of which were Vintage Bentleys. The route driven "was
totally authentic, in terms of driving conditions and
places visited, taking cars northwards through the Great
Wall of China, through the Gobi Desert into Outer Mongolia,
crossing the Steppes and vast grassy plains of Asia,
into Russia and southern Siberia and on to Moscow...
then northwards to St. Petersburg (the famous detour
of the 1907 race), and on into Europe to a party in
Paris."
| Click for larger view | |||||
| Vintage Bentley line-up at the
Peking-to-Paris Rally 2007 (Photographs by Gerard Brown) |
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 Car no. 32 1926 - Bentley 3-litre Nicholas Bailey (AUS) / Helena Edgill (IRL) |
 Car no. 46 1927 - Bentley 4.5 Le Mans Jean-Pierre Muller (CH) / William Medcalf (GB) |
1924 - Bentley Tourer Hans-Dieter Kroenung (D) / Markus Strehle (D) |
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 Car no. 50 1927 - Bentley Open Tourer Robin Grant (GB) / Caroline Wright (GB) |
 Car no. 53 1928 - Bentley 4.5 Le Mans Mark Seligman (GB) / Jocelyn Seligman (GB) |
 Car no. 54 1928 - Bentley 4.5 Le Mans Robert Abrey (GB) / Jane Abrey (GB) |
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 Car no. 57 1929 - Bentley 4.5 Richard Dangerfield (GB) / Jillian Dangerfield (GB) |
 Car no. 58 1929 - Bentley 6.5 Tourer Dirk Lindenbergh (NL) / Esther Van Vooren (NL) |
 Car no. 61 1929 - Bentley 4.5 Le Mans Gordon Phillips (GB) / Mark Phillips (GB) |
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 Car no. 64 1929 - Bentley 6.5 Tourer Peter Livanos (CH) / Bruce Blythe (GB) |
 Car no. 65 1929 - Bentley 6.5 Tourer Ioannis Katsaounis (GR) / Franco Lupi (CH) |
 Car no. 66 1927 - Bentley 6.5 Tourer Anthony Goodwin (GB) / Gillian Goodwin (GB) |
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 Car no. 78 1926 - Bentley 6.5 Litre Tourer Gerold Leumann (CH) / Hans-Rudolf Portmann(CH) |
 Car no. 81 1927 - Bentley Speed Six Engelbertus Kersten (NL) / Berend van den Dool (NL) |
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Two Vintage Bentleys won the 2007 "Vintage Sports Car Club Awards" for pre-1931 cars. These were a 1926 6½ Litre Tourer driven by Gerold Leumann / Hans-Rudolf Portmann (First prize), and a 1929 4½ Litre LeMans driven by Gordon Phillips / Mark Phillips (Third prize). The "Spirit of the Rally Trophy" was won by a 1929 6½ Litre Tourer driven by Peter Livanos.