Bentley Blower in Four Scales: The Original, Blower Jnr and Two Models

Bentley Motors has staged an unusual family portrait in Crewe. Four versions of the famous Blower lined up together, each one built to a different scale. At the centre stood the original 4½ Litre Supercharged Team Car No. 2 from 1929. Around it were the drivable Blower Jnr by Hedley Studios and two collector models by Amalgam Collection in 1:8 and 1:18. There is real news behind the picture as well: the first 25 Blower Jnrs are finished and being prepared for delivery to their owners.

The original: Team Car No. 2

Registered UU 5872, the car is the crown jewel of the Bentley Heritage Collection. It is one of four Team Blowers built for competition, and it raced at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1930. Its proportions and exposed mechanicals make it one of the most recognisable cars of Bentley's early racing years. Retirement is not on the cards: the Blower still turns up at events and historic driving experiences around the world.

Blower Jnr: 85 per cent, electric and road legal

The Blower Jnr was first shown in 2023 as a joint project between Bentley Motors and The Little Car Company, which now trades as Hedley Studios. It recreates the original at 85 per cent of its size, runs purely on electricity and can be driven on public roads. Its powertrain produces 31 bhp (23 kW), top speed is more than 50 mph (80 km/h) and certified range reaches up to 75 miles (120 km).

The cars are built at the Hedley Studios atelier in Bicester. The first of the 25 completed examples belongs to Bentley and has already been delivered to the company's campus in Crewe. Behind the vintage silhouette lies a long process of engineering, testing and homologation, because the modern hardware is meant to stay out of sight and leave the analogue character of the original intact.

"The hardest part of recreating a 1929 Bentley is everything you can't see." Ben Hedley, founder, Hedley Studios

Hedley lists headlights, indicators and brakes, the electrical architecture and even a reversing camera among the systems that had to be engineered to disappear into the car. The Blower Jnr is a fully homologated production vehicle with a run of only 349 cars. Its maker believes it may be the first recreation of a pre-war design to be homologated as a newly built production road vehicle.

Amalgam Collection: a Blower for the display case

At the other end of the scale sits Amalgam Collection. Its new 1:18 Blower was developed together with Bentley, and the company calls it the most technically accomplished model it has ever made at that size. It joins the 1:8 Blower that Amalgam first revealed in February 2020. Founder Sandy Copeman explains the challenge: all of that exposed mechanical detail had to shrink faithfully to one eighteenth of the real car.

Owners of a Blower from the Continuation Series can go a step further and order a 1:8 or 1:18 model that mirrors the specification of their own car. There is also a race-weathered 1:8 version, limited to 30 pieces and painted by hand. It shows Team Car No. 2 as it looked after the 1930 running of Le Mans, bent rear wings from tyre failures included.

What connects the four

Almost a century separates the original from its smaller siblings, yet all four share the same roots. For collectors, the spread is remarkable: from a drivable recreation for country lanes to a miniature that records the exact specification of a Continuation car. If you are weighing up a rare car as a long-term purchase, our supercar investment guide explains what drives values over time, and our supercar buyers guide covers the practical side of buying.