Le Mans, 1927. W.O. Bentley peered into the dusk. His three cars, which had led from the start, were missing.  Two years running he had failed to finish. Once again he was staring into a void. Racing, his shareholders told him, was a waste of money. This race looked like being his last.
 
W.O’s engineering skills had been forged on the Great Northern railway and in the skies of the First World War, where Bentley-powered Sopwith Camels took the fight to Germany’s Red Baron.  Determined to build and race his own cars, he assembled a crack team from all strata of 1920s Britain, from East End boys Leslie Pennal and Wally Hassan to multi-millionaires Woolf Barnato and Tim Birkin, men in search of adventures to blaze their way out of the dark past.
 
They dedicated themselves to building the perfect road  and  racing car. In the hayloft above their workshop, the first Bentley was born and soon it was the car of choice for the fast-living upper classes. They raced at the fashionable Brooklands circuit and then set their sights on the fledgling 24 Hours Le Mans race. An audacious goal for a British car, yet the Bentley Boys rose to the challenge. But on that night in 1927, after the biggest crash in racing history claimed their cars, could they still pull it off and put British motor racing on the map?  
 
In the 1920s, Bentley Motors burned brightly but all too briefly; yet its tale, filled with drama, tragedy, determination and glory still shines a century on.    

Le Mans, 1927. W.O. Bentley peered into the dusk. His three cars, which had led from the start, were missing.  Two years running he had failed to finish. Once again he was staring into a void. Racing, his shareholders told him, was a waste of money. This race looked like being his last.
 
W.O’s engineering skills had been forged on the Great Northern railway and in the skies of the First World War, where Bentley-powered Sopwith Camels took the fight to Germany’s Red Baron.  Determined to build and race his own cars, he assembled a crack team from all strata of 1920s Britain, from East End boys Leslie Pennal and Wally Hassan to multi-millionaires Woolf Barnato and Tim Birkin, men in search of adventures to blaze their way out of the dark past.
 
They dedicated themselves to building the perfect road  and  racing car. In the hayloft above their workshop, the first Bentley was born and soon it was the car of choice for the fast-living upper classes. They raced at the fashionable Brooklands circuit and then set their sights on the fledgling 24 Hours Le Mans race. An audacious goal for a British car, yet the Bentley Boys rose to the challenge. But on that night in 1927, after the biggest crash in racing history claimed their cars, could they still pull it off and put British motor racing on the map?  
 
In the 1920s, Bentley Motors burned brightly but all too briefly; yet its tale, filled with drama, tragedy, determination and glory still shines a century on.    

In January 1964, a team of tiny red and white Mini Coopers stunned the world by winning the legendary  Monte Carlo Rally. It was a stellar year for British cars that  culminated in  Goldfinger  breaking  box office records and  making  James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 the world’s most famous sports  car.

By the sixties, on road, track and silver screen  the  Brits were the ones to beat, winning Formula One championships and capturing hearts. Designers like John Cooper, and Colin Chapman  of  Lotus, dismissed as mere ‘garagisti’ by Enzo Ferrari, grabbed all the prizes, while Alex Issigonis won a knighthood for his revolutionary Mini. The E Type Jaguar was feted as the world’s sexiest car and Land Rover the most durable.

But before the war only one British car had triumphed in a Grand Prix; Britain’s car builders were  fiercely risk-averse.  So what changed? To find out, Peter Grimsdale has gone in search of a generation of rebel creative spirits who emerged from railway arches and Nissen huts  to tear up  the rulebook with their revolutionary machines.  Like the  serial fugitives from the  POW camps, they thrived on adversity, improvisation and  sheer  obstinate determination.  

High Performance  celebrates  Britain’s automotive golden age and the mavericks who sketched them on the back of envelopes and garage floors, who fettled, bolted and welded them together and hammered the competition in the showroom, on the road and on the track – fuelled by contempt for convention.