Topic: Ubb189 Bentley Merlin Special 1952

[mekubb]

For 1 point I need to know what this is exactly

[mekubb]

Xperts' time

[BERTRAND]

Petersen Bentley?

[mekubb]

There are indeed Bentley parts involved but not by Petersen

[mekubb]

Easy pro point ?

[Paul Jaray]

That's called Bentley Merlin Special.

[Paul Jaray]

"Built by Harry Bootsma from Holland. For seven years, from 1995 he built a true monster. In a Bentley chassis from 1952 was a V12 Rolls-Royce Merlin Spitfire engine fitted with rich 27-liter displacement and 900 hp! The body have Bootsma and his team built themselves, the wheels were 21 inches in size (diameter 94 cm)! The first exit was made at the Concours d'Elegance at Het Loo in Apeldoorn 2006 when the engine sound his incredible roar throughout the castle grounds."

[mekubb]

Yes that's it, point for Paul Jaray. This is quite a machine, 900 BHP,  27  L and street legal ! The owner Harry Bootsma is a nice guy, I met him a few years back when he was driving his awesome Volpi Cadillac V16 that he bought from racing driver Clemens Bucci in Argentina. He also has a variety of Aston Martins and some other classics, all parked in an shed in the Dutch countryside. Here is a topic on the car http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=23&t=368972&mid=0&i=0&nmt=A+day+at+Harry%27s%3A+Merlin%2Dengined+Bentley+and+more+%2E+%2E+%2E&mid=0

His most special car is a Alfa Romeo 12C37 grand prix car that he also bought in Argentina some years ago. Actually there were 2 of these cars, the other one was sold to the UK and I understood that Simon Moore was about to write a book about it. The issue now is that Bootsma claims that one of the cars is a replica and that he has the original one according to tests by Dutch TNO Institute. It seems that the English chaps are not too happy.... You can see the Alfa in one of the pics of the link above.