Vaughan Davis 1919-1998

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Vaughan Davis, the long-time Bentley practitioner who preserved the Marker-Jackson Bentley (Mother Gun), died in February. Born in 1919, he grew up at Sunbury, from where he and his father would walk to Brooklands, and later he was able to cycle there from Charterhouse school.

After being apprenticed to Aston Martin, he joined the police and then the RAF, flying lighters as a substitute for racing. After the war he began working for a Bentley specialist and immersed himself in the marque, becoming founder editor of and a memorable contributor to, the Bentley Drivers Club Review and being, with Stanley Sedgwick, a driving force in the club’s resurgence.

His varied occupations always revolved around cars, and usually Bentleys, which is how he came to acquire, around 1960, parts of the Marker-Jackson car, though it was only when he joined Stanley Mann in 1987 that the rebuild began. Though in his 70s, he raced the car and led the successful record attempts at Millbrook in 1992 and ’95. As a founder of Benjafield’s Racing Club he sought to reinvoke the sportsmanlike spirit he felt modem racing had lost, which was typical of this always youthful, gentlemanly and enthusiastic character. GC