The Bentley boys raced hard and partied harder.
They were a social set of independently wealthy young men who favoured the cars of W. O. Bentley. Breitling has just released two new watches in honour of the most famous of them all, Woolf ‘Babe’ Barnato, Surrey County Cricket wicketkeeper and 3 time winner of the Le Mans 24 Hours race in 1928, 1929 and 1930.
Although dedicated sporting amateurs, the Bentley boys were the premier league footballers of their day, with few responsibilities and independent means of wealth. With time on their hands save signing a few cheques, one of their major preoccupations was to race their Bentleys across the highways and byways of Britain long before the days of speed cameras and fines in the post.
With so much practice they all became pretty useful behind the wheel, but none more so than Woolf ‘Babe’ Barnato. Son of a wealthy ‘Randlord’ in South African gold and diamond mining, Barnato not only financed Bentley but also won three Le Mans 24 hour races driving Bentleys in 1928, ’29 and 30. To this day he has a unique wins-to-starts ratio.
The Bentley Barnato Racing Chronographs are designed very much for today’s boy racers, with large sporty dials and sub dials reminiscent of the steering wheel of the Bentley 6 which powered Barnato to his Le Mans wins.
Both watches have captured the opulence and flamboyance of the Bentley boys era.
The Bentley Barnato
The watch comes in an unmissable 49mm case with a fixed bezel featuring a knurled raised motif and red-rimmed sports counters – just like on the dashboards of the finest sports cars from the British carmaker. It combines a calibre 25B self-winding COSC certified chronograph movement together with the ‘30-second chronograph’ system originally devised by Gaston Breitling in 1926. The 30 second chronograph’s central hand sweeps around the dial in half a minute instead of the customary 60 seconds. This provides readings of the measured times accurate to within 1/8th of a second.
On the reverse, an open car bonnet style design reveals a wheel-rim shaped oscillating weight. Available with a black or silver dial the Bentley Barnato comes in steel as well as in a 500-piece red gold limited edition. It can be teamed with a leather, crocodile leather or rubber strap, or with the Speed bracelet.
The Bentley Barnato Racing
The Bentley Barnato Racing special series features a new disc-type counters system displaying the hours and minutes of the measured time by means of two red triangles. There’s a ‘30-second chronograph’ to measure the best laps to the nearest 1/8th of a second.
On the reverse, the oscillating weight is a design nod to the wheel rims on the new Continental GT and supplies the energy to the COSC chronometer-certified movement.
The Bentley Barnato Racing comes in steel or in a 500-piece red gold limited edition.
