Bentley apprentice programme restores roaring '20s engine

Well, it's really cool. You might think Bentley is pretty staid and very British, but they don't mind doing things for the sake of style or just because it's cool. When they ran (and won!) at Le Mans, the drivers wore all-white suits that mimicked those worn by Bentley boys back in the 1920s. And now members of Bentley's apprenticeship programme have restored the historic engine as part of the company's centenary celebrations...

And what is this beast of an engine?!

Seriously, just look at it. It's big and square and looks like something you'd see driving an RMS Titanic, not a car. Yes, I know, given the weight and size of the old Bentleys, there's some joke here, but I'll let it drop.

Quite Audio/Visual Assist

This is Engine No. 212, and while its early history is a bit vague, we do know that this engine belonged to the Royal School of Artillery Corps for over 70 years. Yeah, I know, it's weird. I mean what did a bunch of gunners do. Somehow it ended up in the hands of the Royal School of Artillery Corps at Bovington, Dorset in 1935. The Royal Artillery Corps used it as a teaching aid to teach students the principles of the internal combustion engine....

Quite an audio/video aid.

Members of Bentley's apprenticeship programme restored a historic engine as part of the company's centenary celebrations. Photo: Bentley Motors.

History of the 212 engine

The 212 engine is a four-cylinder engine with a displacement of 3.0, so that there is about a large can of beer per cylinder. The mill was taken apart into its individual components, reassembled and then attached to a purpose-built base for the Centenary Exhibition at Bentley's HQ in Crewe. The gang doing this makeover are a group of apprentice drivers working at Bentley Motors. They spent 700 hours on the beast. To put that into perspective, that's 17 and a half weeks of work if it was just about turning spanners alone.

Engine No. 212 was originally built in 1923, just four years after W.O. Bentley founded the company. So think of it as Ford doing a full factory rebuild of the Model T engine with a group of Vo-Tech students from Detroit. Nice move guys!

Bentley offers a wide range of apprenticeship programmes, from engineering to finance. Photo: Bentley Motors.

What did Bentley's pupils do

The apprentices involved in the restoration were extremely thorough, stripping the entire engine down to its individual components. Parts were photographed, packaged, numbered, catalogued and then registered on the computer to facilitate re-assembly. All parts were cleaned and stripped of old paint. The engine was then repainted in the colours used by the Royal School of Artillery Corps as recognition of their part of the engine's history. A nice nod to Bentley!

What is the Bentley Apprentice Programme?

Like any other large company, Bentley offers many apprenticeship programmes: engineering, sales, marketing, HR, procurement and finance, to name but a few. (Yes, I wonder what it's like to be a bean counter at Bentley?). Bentley currently has more than 130 apprentices. They are all three or four year programmes that allow an individual to develop a balance of automotive skills and qualifications. The apprentices have managed this whole engine rebuilding project themselves, including planning, budgeting and risk assessment...