A Failure to Proceed
Dr Vernon Coleman
I was sitting in our 1957 Bentley S1, parked on double yellow lines waiting for Antoinette to collect a large parcel from a shop in the town, when a man I didn’t know appeared at the window which, since it was a warm day, I had wound down with the old-fashioned window winding handle. Sixty eight year old cars don’t have electric windows, or electric much of anything to be honest.
`Are you suffering from a failure to proceed?’ he asked. He seemed to be quite young, in his late sixties or so, and had a kindly manner. It took me a moment to realise what he meant.
`I’ve always had old Bentley motor cars,’ he added, clearly eager and willing to help if the car had broken down.
`No, no, I’m just waiting for my wife,’ I explained.
He smiled, nodded and muttered a few kind words about the car. I thanked him for offering to help. I love the fact that old Bentleys don’t break down. They simply fail to proceed.
Driving a classic car attracts many smiles and much interest. When we stop and park it’s quite common for a few people to gather around wanting to know a little about the car. You don’t see many really old cars around these days. Most of the ones which are left are kept in hermetically sealed garages, polished and fettled with care and taken by closed trailer to shows. Ours isn’t one of those. Ours is used regularly. We don’t drive it often in the rain because the wipers are a trifle slow and struggle in a storm. We try to get home before dark because to be honest the headlights aren’t quite as bright as those on a modern car. And in public car parks we need more than one parking space because the car, which weighs a feather under two tons, is nearly 18 feet long.
But driving around in a 1950s car is a wonderfully peaceful experience. I’ll never buy a new car again. New cars tell the authorities where you are, and if something goes wrong the mechanics need a laptop to find out what is wrong. Then there will be a long delay while a part is sent from Germany or Japan. Old cars (especially big ones) are immensely comfortable, serene, regal and stately. Lift the bonnet and there are oodles of space around the engine. If I knew anything about cars I’d be able to fiddle with the bits and pieces quite easily. And they’re a darned sight better built than the modern, tin cans which the car companies churn out. Seventy years ago the manufacturers were thoughtful. Our old Bentley has a button on the dashboard which opens the petrol filler cap but there is a wire handle inside the boot in case there’s an electrical fault and the cap doesn’t open. The matched walnut picnic tables in the back of the car are perfect and the lights on the vanity mirrors, fitted for rear seat passengers, work as they did when new. We paid £15,000 for the Bentley, by the way, buying it at auction, and the mile measuring thing and the paperwork show that it’s done less than 60,000 miles since new. (Other than a bicycle, what sort of transport can you buy for that sort of money?) It does around 14 mpg, which is about what it did when new, and likes the more expensive sort of petrol, if you don’t mind. But on the other hand, there is no road tax, no MOT required and the insurance is peanuts. And, since it’s 68-years-old, it’s more environmentally friendly than any new electric car, put together with rare metals dug out of the ground by children and destined for the scrap heap when the batteries die in a few years’ time.
When we bought the car a couple of year ago, the chrome was beginning to show signs of rust and there were a few minor flaws. There was a tear in the leather of the front seat (we mended it with a special patch and you can hardly see the join, especially if you’re sitting on it) and the clock is always 25 minutes past four (so if I want to know the time I wear a watch or ask a policeman). The fuel gauge always shows half full and the temperature gauge doesn’t always tell the truth. But I have dodgy knees, I don’t always hear what people say to me and if you put my feet in a jumble sale they’d be unsold at the end of the day.
It occurred to me that old cars are like people. When they begin to wear out you have two choices. You can spend all your time waiting for people to mend things that don’t really have to be mended or you can just get on with life and enjoy what’s left. I know of people my age who spend four days a week seeing doctors and specialists – not because they have to but because they want everything to be checked and in perfect working order. And I know of people with old cars who never use them because their vehicles are always in the garage having things mended or polished or fettled. (Fettling is a popular word with people who have old cars, though I’m not a fettler I’m afraid.)
I’m so enamoured of our old Bentley that I wrote a book about it or, rather, around it.
There’s nothing in the book on carburettors or plugs or radiator hoses. (I had to use the dictionary to find out how to spell carburettor. I don’t have the foggiest what they do.) It’s a book on life, and a way of looking at life and my philosophy of ageing. And it is, I suppose, a long love letter to a time and a way of life that has been pushed aside and forgotten.
NOTE
Vernon Coleman’s book about the Coleman Bentley is called `Old Man in an Old Car’. You can find a copy via the bookshop on www.vernoncoleman.com or just CLICK HERE
Copyright Vernon Coleman May 2025
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