BENTLEY DRIVERS CLUB: THE ULTIMATE DESTINATION FOR BENTLEY ENTHUSIASTS

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ll Bentley's have a purpose, they are meant to be driven. Bentley Motor Limited is a British manufacturer and marketer of luxury cars and SUV's and a subsidiary of Volkswagen since 1998.
Bentley car enthusiasts came up with Bentley Drivers Club in 1936.
Keston Pelmore, whose initiative launched the Club, was an enthusiastic young owner of Vintage Bentleys. Pelmore, embodying the all-consuming enthusiasm and exhilaration that Bentley motoring has engendered for more than 80 years and wanted to share this experience with like minded fortunate individuals.
Having decided to carry on with the plan, he printed up a number of cards, headed 'Bentley Drivers Club', which he affixed to the windscreen of every Vintage Bentley he could find in the various car parks at Brooklands during the first meeting of the season in March 1936. The people to whom the invitation was sent were to inform if they were interested in such a club. The interested ones were invited to Palmore’s small bachelor flat in Sloane Avenue, London SW3 to attend an inaugural meeting. So good was the response - 26 people turned up - it became necessary for a phone call to be made to the nearby Boltons Hotel in Earls Court Road, who agreed to provide a suitable private room in which the meeting would reconvene.
The Bentley Drivers Club is the largest and most famous group of Bentley enthusiasts. Appropriately enough, the first members were Bentley drivers attending a race at the legendary Brooklands track in Surrey in 1936, canvassed by a note placed under their windscreens by one G.K. Pelmore. The first meeting was over-subscribed; a bigger venue had to be found at the last minute.
Since then the Bentley Drivers Club has gone from strength to strength, with branches from Dallas to Tokyo and from Cape Town to Canberra. The Club organises a number of social and competitive events, and provides specialist services for owners of Cricklewood-, Derby- and Crewe-built Bentleys. The BDC is now the focus of a world-wide Federation of Bentley Clubs and welcomes new members.

Last Updated: 29 September 2022