Driving Bentley’s Blower Junior in Jersey: A match made in heaven?

Jersey might not immediately present the ideal driving option for the enthusiast. It measures at just over 42 square miles, and that means you can do a full lap of the island in around an hour. Importantly, the whole island carries a maximum speed limit of just 40mph.

But when you start to experience some of the tight, winding lanes that Jersey has to offer, that speed limit makes more sense. Even the capital St Helier is tight to drive around but as you explore more of the island, it’s easy to see that the rural streets of Jersey aren’t the friendliest of places for larger cars.

So it’s not the sort of place that you’d really want to drive an original Bentley Blower through. With a 117.5-inch wheelbase – just shy of Bentley’s current Flying Spur – leaf spring suspension and mechanical drum brakes, the 1929 4½ Litre Supercharged Team Car #2 that we’re riding shotgun in through Jersey’s backlanes takes some threading as it heads around switchback bends.

It’s Bentley’s own car; extensively restored and driven hard at events throughout the years, it’s a racecar with a history that is both long and varied. However, one thing that Team Car #2 can’t offer is an easy driving experience through Jersey. It’s also insured for £25m, making oncoming large trucks and tractors even more formidable. But what if you want some of that classic Blower look and feel in a smaller and more nimble package?

That’s where the Bentley Blower Jr comes in – and it’s the reason that we’ve come to Jersey in the first place. Created by British firm Hedley Studios, it’s an 85 per cent scale recreation of the Team Car #2, measuring in at 3.7 metres long and 1.5 metres wide. Fully road legal and underpinned by a clever electric powertrain that delivers 20bhp and a range of around 65 miles, the Jnr appears – on paper at least – to be the ideal way of getting around Jersey in style. Crucially, it also has a top speed of 45mph, so it’s ideally paced for the roads here.

Sitting together, you can see that the Junior has got the original’s style down to a tee. Underneath, however, is where the two differ considerably; of course, the electric motor isn’t quite the same as the 4 ½ litre engine under the bonnet of the Team Car, but the Junior makes use of far more modern construction materials and techniques. The rear of the body, for instance, is made from carbon fibre while the somewhat wooden drum brakes of the original are replaced with powerful Brembo discs.

The electric motor is mounted underneath the rear axle and the batteries and complex electronics are placed securely in an undertray. That famously large supercharger at the front of the Blower is also recreated and repurposed in the Junior, instead housing the charging port.

Inside, the Junior is luxuriously finished. The dials, which would usually be used to show readouts such as oil pressure and temperature on the ‘original’ Blower now show battery state and regenerative systems, while a mode selector allows you to dial through different power outputs.

Given that the Blower Junior is limited to 349 units worldwide, it’s quite the thing to see a four-car procession of them lining up outside the St Brelade’s Bay Hotel. We’ve got a mixture of colours, too, but the bare carbon fibre of our development vehicle looks particularly stunning, if slightly more modern than you might expect.

As we pootle out of the hotel’s driveway – in eerie silence, we should add – it’s clear that the Blowers aren’t going to go very far unnoticed. For starters, because they’re built to an 85 per cent scale of an already-quite-large car, the Junior still measures longer than a Volkswagen Up!, so there’s no ‘toy car’ feeling about it whatsoever. The steering is reasonably loose but with that electric motor spinning up, it’s not hard to get to the island’s speed limit more quickly than you might think.

We quickly circle around to the stunning Route de la Pulente, which runs along the west side of the island. The next stop across is, of course, Newfoundland, but rather than battling the ocean waves of the North Atlantic, we’re tackling the wind and rain which is pelting towards us as we travel along. The Junior doesn’t have much in the way of weather protection and things get chilly, quickly. However, a stiff upper lip prevails and we carry on, the Junior running along merrily beneath us. It’s even got a traditional horn – activated by a foot pedal – and as the weather begins to brighten, more people are out and about to wave at the convoy of Blowers as they saunter past.

It’s getting warmer now, too, and as the sun descends the Blowers start to look even more majestic. With the roads still damp, it isn’t hard to get the rear wheels to spin up as you accelerate, so after a few sharp bends, it’s clear that a softer application of throttle helps the Junior to get going more efficiently. At £129,500, the Blower Junior still commands a high price, so we’re being extra careful.

We dart eastwards and head through St John’s Village and Les Hautes Croix, before heading back south towards the capital. As the countryside lanes swap into the mode urban routes through St Helier, the Blower feels even more at home size-wise. We get caught in some stop-start traffic and a passer-by asks us to rev the engine. Electric motor silently whispering away, we blast the horn instead and get a thumbs-up.

Back to the St Brelade’s Bay Hotel, we breeze into a parking space that you’d never chance in the original Blower. It’s yet another fitting reason why the Junior makes the most sense in a place like Jersey but, thankfully, the character that it offers hasn’t been shrunk down either.