He built the firm into one of the world's premier luxury and performance auto manufacturers, and led the marque to multiple victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

After selling his namesake company to Rolls-Royce in 1931, he was employed as a designer for Lagonda, Aston Martin and Armstrong Siddeley.

His father Alfred Bentley was a retired businessman[2] and his mother Emily (née Waterhouse) was born in Adelaide, Australia.

The five-year premium apprenticeship with the Great Northern, which cost his father £75,[6] taught Bentley to design complex railway machinery and also gave him practical experience in the technical procedures to cast, manufacture, and build it.

[8] "My longest day", he said, "was London to Leeds and back, on the return journey doing Wakefield to King's Cross non-stop for 175 miles.

He competed in two Isle of Man Tourist Trophy races, on a Rex in 1909[1] and as a member of Indian's factory team in 1910.

[10] After he studied theoretical engineering at King's College London, he took employment with the National Motor Cab Company, where his several duties included overseeing the maintenance of the fleet's 250 Unics.

[11] Dissatisfied with the performance of the DFPs, but convinced that success in competition was the best marketing for them, Bentley was inspired by a paperweight to have pistons made for the engine in aluminium alloy.

[7] Commissioned in the Royal Naval Air Service, Bentley was sent to share with manufacturers the knowledge and experience he had gained from the modifications to the engines of the DFP cars he sold in Britain.

Following his first consultation, which was with the future Lord Hives at Rolls-Royce, the company's first aero engine, named the Eagle, was designed with pistons of aluminium instead of cast-iron or steel.

[7] When they proved unwilling to implement Bentley's more important suggestions the Navy gave him a team to design his own aero engine at the Humber factory in Coventry.

In 1923, when a rather sceptical Bentley was persuaded to attend the inaugural Le Mans race, he saw John Duff and Frank Clement's private entry take fourth place.

Tim Birkin's brainchild, the car was made in separate, purpose-built workshops, away from Bentley, in Welwyn Garden City.

The Press Association understands that Messrs Napier and Son, aero-engine builders, have reached an agreement to take over Bentley Motors Limited which is in voluntary liquidation.

It is expected that the matter will come before the Court within the next few days.Cricklewood production[7][17] However it was arch rival Rolls-Royce who bought the company, topping Napier's bid at the last minute and announcing the acquisition on 20 November 1931.

Rolls-Royce's agents had posed as the British Equitable central trust to avoid alerting Napier and inflating the price.

The name alone was to be kept and used for a smaller economy car but that prototype proved to be as complex and expensive as the bigger Rolls-Royces and its development was halted.

[21] Around that time he managed to begin to report in person to the design teams at Derby making friends in the process, among them Harry Grylls and Stewart Tresilian who did some design-only work on a short-stroke replacement for the V12 engine for their Phantom III.

[24] Bentley joined the new board as Technical Director and moved to Lagonda with the majority of Rolls-Royce's racing department staff.

Unable to persuade Harry Grylls to join his engineering staff at Staines, Bentley obtained Stewart Tresilian's services from February 1936.

Although the Ministry's controls were intended to maintain supply to existing manufacturers, they were applied unevenly—while Lagonda had tooled up for quantity production and provided evidence of a substantial export order book, David Brown's companies were able to obtain the steel they required.

In August, 1947, J. R. Greenwood, Chairman of Lagonda, announced that although work had begun on the first 1,000 of the new Bentley-designed 2+1⁄2-litre cars, the project had been cancelled owing to continuing production difficulties and the recently imposed double purchase tax.

While Lagonda would continue with its other engineering activities, including the manufacture of a diesel-powered pile-driver, the company notified its 1,600 workers that some of them would inevitably become redundant.

This durable DOHC engine would continue in Lagondas and Aston Martins until 1959 and, Bentley noted, important design details were carried on through to their V8.

Founded in 1936 the club now has nearly 4,000 members throughout the United Kingdom, Europe, US, Canada, Southern Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

A new website was set up, www.wobentley.club, that contains the archive of all current data related to known (and unknown) Bentleys in existence, with photographs and documents about each car's history.