By Karl Ludvigsen. This book by prize-winning author Karl Ludvigsen offers auto
enthusiasts a time-travelling adventure in its description of the evolution of
the V-8 engine. It begins more than a century ago when Rolls-Royce built one of
the world’s first V-8 engines. The saga races through decades of engineering
experiment and creativity as Bentley, famed for its racing exploits at Le Mans,
exploited the exotic potential of supercharging. When the fortunes of
Rolls-Royce and Bentley combined in the 1950s, both needed a new engine, and
hitherto-secret reports and exclusive interviews take the reader behind the
scenes of the new V-8’s creation.
Further evolution came with Bentley’s need for a sporting
engine, leading to the development of turbo-supercharging and the introduction
of the 300-horsepower Mulsanne Turbo in 1982, the first big high-performance
saloon. Here too the reader rides with the engineers as they make this
significant advance in car design.
At the end of the twentieth century, after a tug-of-war with
BMW, Bentley found itself part of the Volkswagen Group, and the resources of
its new owner helped bring Bentley’s new Great Eight to heights of performance
and perfection.
Lavishly illustrated, the book portrays some of the world’s
greatest cars from the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud and Corniche to Bentley’s
Continental, Azure, Arnage, Brooklands and Mulsanne. It introduces the reader
to the engineers and executives whose enthusiasm for the V-8 engine has not
only prolonged the half-century lifetime of one of the world’s most
accomplished engines but also endowed it with the advanced technologies of the
twenty-first century. Bringing its unique perspective to the world of the
automobile, Bentley’s Great Eight will appeal to all lovers of the history of
technology.
- Hard bound with dust jacket
- 208 pages
- 255mm x 255mm
- 230 black and white and color photographs and
diagrams