MONTEREY, Calif.—Elsewhere on these pages, you can find our first track drive of the new Bentley Supersports. Shorn of its hybrid system and stripped back to rear-wheel drive, it’s not only the most driver-focused Bentley we can remember, but it’s also apparently the lightest car the company has made in 85 years. But you have to go back even further into the Bentley archive to find the first car to wear the Super Sports badge. And since Bentley had done just that, bringing along to Laguna Seca an example from the time, it would have been rude to refuse the offer of a ride.
Bentley built eighteen Super Sports between 1925 and 1927, taking its standard 3 Litre model and shortening the wheelbase by 9.5 inches (241 mm). Like today’s Supersports, that shaved some mass and made it a more responsive driver’s car. But a fast one, too. The radiator was more tapered and thus presented less resistance against the flow of air, although like many cars at the time, the bodywork was a matter of whichever coachbuilder the owner decided upon.
Like today with the Continental GT and the new Supersports, the 3.0 L engine Bentley in the original Super Sports was more special than one you’d find in the standard car, with new pistons, a lighter flywheel, more compression, and different carburetors. Together with its unique gearing, the factory would guarantee a Super Sports that could exceed 100 mph (160 km/h); the millions of Ford Model Ts that took the roads those same years were hard-pushed to break 40 mph (64 km/h).
YM 4037, better known as Smoky, was the 12th of those 18 cars. It was built in 1926 and wears two-seater bodywork from Jarvis of Wimbledon. Although it has lived in New Zealand and South Africa at times, it spent its early life as a race car in England. In 1932, its second owner, Bentley racing driver Kit Baker-Carr, had the engine upgraded, swapping in a 4.5 L motor from the car that won Le Mans in 1928. Thus powered, Baker-Carr used Smoky to good effect at Brooklands between 1935 and 1937, with seven wins during that time and a fastest lap of almost 117 mph (188 km/h).
Get in, let’s go for a ride
From Smoky’s passenger seat on the access roads around Laguna Seca, it all seemed faintly terrifying. There are none of the safety features you’d expect from a modern car—even safety belts and roll bars were yet to be adopted. Further complicating matters is the pedal layout; like other racing cars from the era, the clutch is still the left-most pedal, but the brake and accelerator are swapped, with the go-fast pedal in the middle and the “oh no please slow down” pedal on the right. (I’m told this made more sense given the relative ineffectiveness of the brakes in racing at the time.)
Smoky belongs to a private owner who kindly lent it to Bentley for Monterey Car Week; between that and the pedal layout, I was content to ride shotgun. But in the capable hands of Adam from Bentley’s heritage department, I got to experience far more of the car’s performance envelope than if it were my scaredy-cat self behind the wheel.
As you might expect, it’s a more visceral experience than anything we have today. But it still has elements in common with today’s supercars. The ride is firm—actually rather bouncy—and you need to brace yourself, holding onto the leather-wrapped interior where you can. The dash is covered with instruments and toggles, but also a plaque that lets you know you’re in something a little bit out of the ordinary. With small screens, there’s a fair amount of buffeting as the speed begins to rise, and you smell the combustion products of the engine as well as the scenery. You don’t actually hear much of the engine; most of the sound is whine from the gearbox.
What I didn’t expect was the cornering grip, at least on the tarmac around the circuit. I’m not saying one would beat a competent driver in an old MX-5 on mediocre tires, but I’m also not not saying that.
Perhaps like my own on-track performance in the 2026 car, our 10-minute ride barely scratched the Super Sports’ performance envelope; I’d be surprised if we hit 60 mph (97 km/h), never mind the ton. Like a modern supercar—particularly something with a Le Mans-winning engine—I can see how one could easily scare themselves behind the wheel if they decided to drive like an oaf. But it left me energized and a little thrilled in the way the best modern supercars still can. I guess some things never change.
