Vintage voyagers make valley first stop
Bentley brigade boosts areatourism profile worldwide

BUMPING ALONG WITH THE BENTLEYS

Here are a few stops for the Western USA Bentley Tour, which began in Britain:

Debra Gruszecki
The Desert Sun
April 16, 2005

PALM SPRINGS - The city of stars on Thursday became the first stagecoach stop for 20 Bentleys shipped from the United Kingdom to Long Beach - the U.S. home of the Queen Mary - for a 3,000-mile run along the West Coast.

These were no covered wagons.

The sleek cache of vintage and contemporary cars, joined by U.S. based Bentleys, each worth more than $400,000 - with one 1932, 8 Litre Open Tourer bearing a blue book price of $1 million - arrived at Palm Mountain Resort & Spa, 155 S. Belardo Rd., as Thursday's sun set behind Mount San Jacinto.

"It was quite a sight," Tim Ellis, the resort's general manager who hails from Essex, England, said Friday, as his fellow countrymen were gearing up for a tour of Palm Springs car collector Bob Pond's estate - and more importantly, his garage.

The West Coast trip, sponsored by the USA Western Region of the Bentley Drivers Club and supported by Bentley Motors in the United Kingdom and the United States, will take the contingent from Palm Springs over the next month through five states, posting stops at landmarks like the relocated London Bridge, the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas, and along such historic paths as Route 66.

Ellis is thrilled Palm Springs was picked as the first stop.

"It's great visibility,'' he said.

By Friday morning, tourists milled about and gawked at the rare pit stop of cars.

"There were only 3,032 W.O. Bentleys made by the original founder between 1921 and 1931," said Terry Ward of Malvern, Australia, who had his cherry-red, 2000 Bentley Arnage Saloon shipped from the UK by way of Morocco for the West Coast ride. "Today, only 1,700 are left in the world, and 18 are parked right here."

"I've never seen a collection like that before," he said.

For Ward, it was quite the affirmation.

Since retirement as a chief executive of H.J. Heinz Co. in Australia eight years ago, Ward said he's been involved in six Bentley cross-country runs on three continents. "We love the cars, we love the social scene,'' he said.

David Smith, of Essex, England, who turned the key in his 1926 Bentley 3 Litre Open Tourer months after he and wife, Margaret, scouted out the stops in a "dummy run" last Fall, said Palm Springs was built into the itinerary for two reasons.

It's close to Los Angeles, he said, and it has a warm, desert ambiance.

"When we drove into Palm Springs Friday night, it was a wow,'' he said. "We could hear people saying, 'Look at that.' It's great fun because we look at them, too. We're nothing but posers in these cars."

Chris Comet, a Bentley Rolls-Royce sales manager at Desert European Motorcars, 71-387 Highway 111, Rancho Mirage, a dealership claiming to be the world's largest seller of Bentley and Rolls-Royce cars, with 1,400 to 1,500 in annual sales, said the visit is good publicity for Bentley.

"These are vintage, pre-war cars,'' he said. "So, yes, it brings excitement to the brand and the Bentley heritage - one of their brand pillars."

Ellis said it's also great publicity for a city that considers its $1 billion tourism industry to be the lifeblood of the Coachella Valley economy.

"This will be covered on both sides of the Atlantic, here and in the United Kingdom,'' Ellis said, and it will play into an important dynamic for the Palm Springs destination - international tourism.

"We're seeing a tremendous bounce this year because of the very favorable exchange rate from the U.S.," Ellis said, before explaining that a British pound once fetching $1.75 now gets $2. "A vacation for someone coming over here from England is about 20 percent less than it was two years ago."

The same can be said of the gas coaches built for comfort and speed will guzzle.

Richard Freestone of Essex, who'll ramble through the West in a creme coffee-colored, 1928 Bentley 4½ Litre Open Tourer, said the price of petroleum in England is three times more than the price of regular gas in California.

Not bad for a type of car that can clock 90 miles per hour on an open stretch and make a 15-mile run-for-it on one $2.65 gallon of gas.