“You ever been in a 1930s Pre War Racing Bentley?”
You gotta love that as the opening line to a phone call!! Today I had an amazing experience on a commercial photography – behind the scenes shoot with Omologato Watches. They were making a short video filmed featuring their ‘British Racing Green’ watch and 2 1930s Racing Bentleys. My brief was to capture the making of this video as they drove around the countryside in the Bentleys… Ohhhh go on then!!!
Star of the show was GSU 757, this beautiful Pre War Racing Bentley. This was one of the Bentleys from the Morley Racing Collection. It is a 2 seater racing car built in 1938 on a short 9 foot chassis. Coupled with a 4.5 litre engine, as used in the bigger Le Mans cars which apparently makes it very nimble. As Shami Kalra, founder of Omologato Watches was soon to find out with Stuart Morley later …
First Oli from YouTube channel Mumbo, needed to get some footage. Along with his hand-held ‘mobi’ mounted camera, he set up a camera rig on the bonnet of GSU 757 to capture Shami and Stuart driving through the lanes. A third camera was mounted to the back of Oli’s LandRover Defender camera-car for low angle tracking shots. It was a Proper Boys Toys kinda day!!
A good selection of images around the yard safely in the bag, we were soon on our way. Stuart and Shami lead the way in GSU 757, while I followed behind in XI 6264. What an incredible experience to be driven in the back of this beautiful 1926 Bentley Vanden Plas by Stuart’s brother James.
Feeling nostalgic…
Sitting there being blown around in the open air, the loud exhaust & smell of the Castrol R engine oil. The car twitching constantly on it’s skinny tyres… it was easy to imagine the cars back in their heyday. I couldn’t help myself and had to have a go at editing some of the photos to give them an old Antique plate developed feel to them.
The end of the day was soon here, as the light started to fade there was just time to meet Grandad. Peter Morley had no doubt passed on his love and enthusiasm for racing these classic Bentleys to his Grandsons. You could still see the twinkle in his eye as he fired up another from his collection.
Thank you to Stuart and James from Morley Racing for allowing me to put a tick in a Life Box today. Thank you to Omologato Watches for asking me to shoot the ‘behind the scenes’ of their video. I hope I captured a feel of the day… Here’s the finished YouTube Video
