This was founded in 1998 for “the advancement of public knowledge and appreciation of the Bentley motorcar and its history by the establishment and maintenance of a museum, library and archive for the preservation, exhibition and study of the Collection.”

The Foundation is responsible for the storage and safe custody of many historic records and documents from Bentley's Cricklewood days, principal among which are the individual chassis build and service records for every Bentley built between 1919 and 1931, together with literally thousands of blue-prints detailing individual engine and chassis components of WO’s cars.  These priceless artifacts were given to the Bentley Drivers Club many years ago by Rolls-Royce Ltd, to whose generosity and foresight the Foundation today continues to be grateful, as it does for the chassis order cards for the Bentleys produced at Derby in the thirties, and those produced at Crewe from 1946 until 1965.

There are also scrapbooks of contemporary press cuttings, produced by both the original Bentley Motors Ltd, and also by Woolf Barnato, former chairman of the Company, in which he had invested significant personal wealth.  Add to these a photographic archive indexed by chassis number, numerous personal records, artifacts and documents donated by works staff and/or their descendants, not to mention a significant motoring library and a collection of Bentley memorabilia.

The Foundation, as part of its remit, publishes books and monographs on related topics. The first of these was 'The Motorcycling Bentleys' as a 48 page monograph, written by the late Vaughan Davis, with David Burgess-Wise. This work describes WO Bentley's first foray into motor sport, on two wheels, at the end of the first decade of the last century.

Over the last fifty years or so, much has been written about the Cricklewood manufactured Bentleys, much of this humorous. However, until the Trustees decided to remedy this matter, this particular aspect had never enjoyed publication in its own right. 'Bentley - Lighter Moments with our Heavy Metal' brings together the best of Bentley humour, inculding contributions from Brockbank, Thelwell, Red Daniells, Harry Charnock and Sir Henry Hotstuff.

Books are currently available through the 'Regalia & Literature' section on this website, and watch out for further projects, currently in the planning stage. .

All this motoring history is housed in our brand new club building at Wroxton in Oxfordshire, which is also the administrative headquarters of the Bentley Drivers Club.

Save for the gift of all this archival material mentioned above, from the Bentley Drivers Club, the Foundation is starting from scratch in financial terms and, as a Charitable Trust, is wholly dependent on donations.  These will enable the Foundation to acquire more contemporary Bentley material, as and when this becomes available.  Donations and gifts will also facilitate the holding of seminars, as well as the publication of historical and technical records likely to be of interest to a wider audience of engineering and motoring enthusiasts.  Your support in this direction would be greatly appreciated.

You can become a member and join over 500 likeminded Associates by making a donation of not less than £20 to the Foundation

The trustees of the Foundation are:

The following are some of the principal aspects of the Foundation's activity since its inception:

Computerised scanning, using purpose-designed software, of all Bentley works chassis records up to 1965, enabling these to be accessed on screen and printed

Computerised scanning of blueprints of several thousand Bentley Motors drawings dating back to 1921-1931, enabling high quality prints to be made for sale by the BDC's Vintage Spares Scheme, whilst preserving the originals.

Publication of three Bentley-related historical monographs, together with a book of Bentley humour.

Thanks to the regular meetings of the BDC's volunteer Archive Working Party, the individual chassis photographic files continue to be augmented, as does the computerised index of the library and other documents. Indexing of photographic negatives has also begun.

The Archive Working Party also deals with requests from Bentley owners for information and sometimes, photographs, of individual cars and their history.