Wallpaper* takes the wheel of the Bentley Blower Jnr for a rich automotive experience

I’m barrelling across Tower Bridge in a vintage Bentley. At least, that’s what it feels like, with vast a rope-wound metal steering wheel beneath my gloved hands and bitter January winds rushing up the Thames and making the bridge’s mandatory 20mph speed limit feel like about 70. The only thing missing is the noise, for underneath the Bentley’s long bonnet there’s nothing but batteries.

This is the Bentley Blower Jnr, a scale recreation of one of the most iconic racing cars of all time. Announced in 2023 by the Little Car Company (since renamed Hedley Studios), the Blower Jnr is fully sanctioned by Bentley itself, with the same exacting levels of fit and finish as you’ll find in Crewe’s finest production cars.

There are crucial differences, however. For a start, the Blower Jnr is a scale model, just 85 per cent the size of the original. As a result, it seats two in a tandem configuration, not side by side, even though it’s still a fairly substantial machine. It’s also electric, and unlike Hedley Studio’s line-up of other pocket-size recreations of sporting classics, it is fully road-legal.

So just how does the Blower Jnr match up to its forebear? We didn’t have a 1920s Bentley on hand to do a comparison, but the ethos and feel certainly match up to the original, even if the sound and smell do not. The Bentley Blower was commissioned by the racing driver Sir Henry ‘Tim’ Birkin and consisted of a large supercharger affixed to the front of a Bentley 4½ Litre racing car. Performance was boosted, even if reliability suffered, but the scale of the machine, and the skill, panache and sheer nerve of the era’s drivers, made it a formidable opponent. Around 55 Blowers were built.

The car’s iconic status was cemented by Bentley’s decision to recreate it at the end of the last decade. The company’s Mulliner division scanned the original tooling jigs and components and used the original design drawings to build 12 customer cars, exacting recreations in every respect.

When it came to partnering with Hedley Studios, certain compromises had to be made. The scaled-down Jnr is 3.7m to the original’s 4.4m. It’s propelled by a 15kW electric motor, with a modest range of around 65 miles fully charged. With an equivalent power rating of 20hp, top speed is 45mph, well out of reach in central London but more than enough in such an open cockpit. Weather protection is non-existent, while the fuel tank at the rear has been repurposed into a small trunk. The ‘supercharger’ out front is now the location of the charge point.

Back on Tower Bridge, the Blower Jnr has created a Best of British tableaux straight out of central casting; the crowds of selfie-snapping tourists on the bridge don’t know how good they’ve got it. This particular car is finished in the First Edition specification, limited to 99 units (all of which have now sold out). Hedley Studios is now building a configurable edition with five distinct livery packs (all of which can be tinkered with on the company’s online configurator tool).

These livery packs evoke key moments in Bentley’s inter-war racing history. ‘The Blue Pack’ was inspired by company owner Woolf Barnato’s race against the Blue Train from the Côte d’Azur to Calais, while ‘The Grey Pack’ references the Bentley Speed Six that won at Le Mans in 1929 and 1930. Customers also have the chance to hand in hand with Mulliner up in Crewe in order to create something a bit more bespoke. Hedley is also hoping to bring customers up to its base at Bicester Heritage in Oxfordshire to see their car being built. And you can order one through a Bentley dealership.

According to Hedley Studios, the USA is by far the largest market, and many customers own a full-size Bentley as well, either an original or a continuation car (or both). The UK and Central Europe aren’t far behind. As our cross-London trip proved, this is an immensely usable city car, albeit unconventionally styled and suitable for fair weather use only (unless you possess a driving coat, hat and goggles). In fact, the Little Car Company rebranded itself partly because people had the impression that their products were primarily aimed at children.

There is something of the glorified toy about the Blower Jnr. You sit up high, with the slender wedge of glass doing very little to deflect the wind. The steering isn't ultra-precise, especially with the hefty wheel, nor does it have the neck-snapping acceleration of other electric cars. None of this matters, because above all, driving the Blower Jnr feels like an event, with unrivalled connectivity to the world outside.

Everyone you pass, from cars to cyclists, pedestrians to buses, cabs, vans and more, greets you with a smile and, more often than not, a question as well. Few cars have attracted as much attention as this one, even amongst jaded Londoners.

The Blower Jnr is the kind of beautiful trinket that moneyed car enthusiasts snap up to add to an existing collection. Road-legal status means you could conceivably undertake a shortish commute, perhaps racing up to the City from a Surrey pile and charging the car during the day. A traditional 'fly-off' handbrake adds character to your starts, while the drive selector, indicators and headlight switches all have a vivid, vintage feel.

The recreated dashboard swaps battery level for the rev counter, with a knurled wooden knob serving as a drive selector. As in Bentley’s ‘real’ road cars, there’s a catch-all ‘Bentley’ mode alongside Sport and Comfort settings. The latter gives the best range, while Sport amplifies the go-kart-like characteristics that are so smile-inducingly present in Hedley’s diminutive Bugatti, Ferrari and Aston Martin models.

Hedley Studios has found a rich seam with its electrified recreations of classics. Next up is the company’s wild reimagining of a classic 1980s toy, the remote-controlled Tamiya off-road buggy, only this time made fully drivable. Existing and potential customers constantly make suggestions for future products, but the company is staying tight-lipped for now. The Blower Jnr suggests that in their hands, anything is possible.

Bentley Blower Jnr, BentleyBlowerJnr.com, HedleyStudios.com, @Hedley.Studios