Reviving an icon: The Bentley Blower

The past 20 years or so has seen a transition regarding the value of heritage among the car manufacturing grandees, moving from being viewed with a vague indifference to becoming a core element for promoting brand awareness. The lustre that a successful past can bring to a marque is now mined through everything from lapel badges to company run museums and active support for historic events like the Goodwood Festival of Speed. 

The latest evolution of the promotional product drawn from an automotive hinterland is the “continuation series car”, where a manufacturer will create a limited run of new examples of an old, iconic model. The original cars will always be ahead in cachet and value but through being built by the factory these are more desirable than any third party replica, no matter how accurate that replica may be.

Despite the eye watering price tag that inevitably comes with a high quality limited edition product from a mass manufacturer, the progress of legislation and regulation mean they are invariably not road legal and therefore destined to be either altered to conform with the current laws, trailered to a show, locked away accumulating value or driven on track. Despite these major drawbacks there has never been a problem selling them and so far we have seen Jaguar revive the iconic lightweight E Type racer while Aston Martin took a different route in appealing to the inner 12 year old of your average multi-millionaire with the “Goldfinger” DB5.