Robin Hine drove his 1926 Bentley Red Label Vanden Plas 3.0-litre tourer from Victoria to Vancouver to participate in the Olde English Car Club’s tribute to the original London to Brighton run through the English countryside in 1896.
Robin’s vintage Bentley led a procession Bentleys, Jaguars, Morgans, Aston Martins and MGs on a November jaunt through Maple Ridge and Mission with a pub on the Fraser River as the destination. The annual event commemorates the original 100-kilometre London to Brighton ‘Emancipation Run” on November 14, 1896. It was organized by Britain’s first motoring club as England’s first legal run without the need for a flag man to walk in front of vehicles, and with the speed limit raised from four miles per hour to 14 mph.
Robin Hine’s 1926 Bentley was originally purchased by his grandfather Phillip in 1936 to commute from his Frinton-On-Sea home to his job as an insurance underwriter with Lloyd’s of London. In 1950, the aging gentleman’s sportscar was replaced by a 1930 4.5-litre Bentley and the 1926 model was given to Robin’s father Jeremy. That car is now owned by Robin’s uncle so both Bentley’s remain in the family.
“During the war, it was laid up for two or three years when you couldn’t get fuel,” Robin says. “Because it lived in Frinton-On-Sea right on the coast, it was commandeered, the back seat was taken out and it was set up for a machine gun in case the country was invaded.”
In 1958, Robin’s parents decided to move back to Victoria where his mother was from. They took ‘RM’ with them. The family refers to the vintage Bentley by its RM number plate which stays with the car for life. One of four boys, Robin was born in 1962. “I knew about RM from a very early age. I sat on dad’s lap steering it and learned to drive it at the Hillside Shopping Mall at age of 13.”
The family moved back to England in 1975 with the Bentley occupying half a 40-foot container.
By 1980, Robin was 18 and allowed to drive the old Bentley. His first trip was to Whitsun in Scotland for an annual end of May four-day weekend gathering of vintage Bentley owners.
“My father was generous with the car, always allowed us to drive at an early age. That’s what brought me close to the car. I got to meet a lot of people my age doing the same thing,” he says.
The Silverstone racing circuit was only 20 minutes away from his home and Robin got into vintage racing with the Bentley. “Tracks like Olton Park, Snetterton, Knockhill in Scotland, it was proper club racing, driving to the circuit in the car, camping with buddies, all helping each other,” Robin says of his 15 years’ racing in England. He also took the Bentley on trips with friends to the south of France and to Le Mans for the races.
“I’m pretty handy mechanically,” he explained. “That’s part of the reason I got the car over my other brothers. I did a lot of work, changing oil, tires and brakes. It’s part of the ownership of these old cars.”
Robin, a finishing carpenter, missed Canada where he was born. He moved back to Victoria in 2006 to build a house in Deep Cove.
“I was still humming and hawing about bringing the car over. In 2011, I decided to ship the Bentley from Liverpool to Halifax,” he says. Since he loved driving the car, he picked it up in Halifax, took the ferry to St. John’s, Newfoundland and began a 9,000-kilometer coast to coast trip that took three weeks. “Any excuse for driving is good enough for me,” Robin says.
He stopped at the Winnipeg hotel where his parents stayed in January 1964 after driving the Bentley from Victoria to attend a cousin’s wedding. The trip was made through the harsh Canadian winter with no roof. His father had lent the hood to someone in Scotland in the 1950s and it was never returned.
“To see the joy on someone’s face whether old or young, fills me with joy. People say: ‘There goes Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’. I think because I have been brought up with the car, it’s part of me. I don’t baby it. It’s there to be used and enjoyed for what it is.”
The Bentley has traveled nearly three million kilometres (1.9 million miles). “For 25 years, it had five regular drivers: My father, myself and my three brothers,” he says. “If the car was available, someone would use it for golf days or going up to Scotland.”
This winter, Robin plans to rebuild the top end of the engine as the car has been driven nearly 300,000 kilometres since the engine came apart.
“I’ve grown up with the car and I love to enjoy it,” he says. “It’s a hobby and I like to share it as much as I can. It’s nice to be out and about and using a car that has all this history.”
The car will soon be 100 years old. “I am having a serious think of what to do for 2026,” he says. “I need to drive somewhere but haven’t decided where: back east, down south, Alaska…I need to talk to some people and see what they come up with.”
Alyn Edwards is a classic car enthusiast and a partner in a Vancouver-based public relations company. [email protected]
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