“W.O. Bentley’s cars are simply the most desirable, charismatic, successful and dominant vehicles of the vintage era. Walter Owen Bentley won Le Mans 24 hour endurance race five times between 1924 and 1930 with the “Bentley Boys” driving his large and vigorous machines”………Robert Coucher, “Octane” magazine.

THE VINTAGE BENTLEY – OUR CLUB

The Bentley Drivers Club of Australia Inc. (BDCA) is one of a number of clubs worldwide that is devoted to the preservation, restoration, upkeep and enjoyment of Bentley motorcars. Based in Melbourne, Victoria, the club has about 100 members throughout Australia and overseas. It celebrated its 68th Anniversary in 2024. So far as we are aware, it is the only club anywhere to focus exclusively on the original Vintage Bentley.

The club was formed in March, 1956, “to further the interests of the marque in Australia”, and is unique in its focus on vintage Bentleys – those cars made by the Bentley company between 1921 and 1931 when its founder, Walter Owen “W.O.” Bentley was at the helm. When the club was formed, some 60 of these cars were known in Australia. Only a few of them were then in regular use and the condition of many was at a low ebb. Some of the owners belonged to the UK-based Bentley Drivers Club (BDC) formed 20 years earlier. However, there was a need for a “local” club to more closely foster their enthusiasm and provide ‘close at hand’ practical support for the maintenance and restoration of the cars.

The first President of the Club was the owner of the earliest 3-litre to come to Australia at that time, the late Bill Higgins of Wangaratta in northern Victoria. A newspaper proprietor, he bought the 1922 car from the fourth owner in the 1940s. Fittingly, the current owner of the car is his grandson, also a country newspaper proprietor.

The Club offers a range of activities that centre on enthusiastic use of the cars. A regular Newsletter contains items of technical and historical interest, while chronicling the Club’s many activities. It joins the Australian Regions of the Bentley Drivers Club in the UK (to which many of its members belong) for the biennial National Bentley Rallies.

Membership is open to all owners and enthusiasts of the marque. Ownership of a vintage Bentley is not a pre-requisite.