"During"

British Sports Cars
of San Luis Obispo

I spent a lot of time looking for a shop that could restore B512CU after the first shop turned down this project. I made a list of every shop within 300 miles that claimed they were in the restoration business on their website, then Lisa and I visited the most likely candidates. We felt very good about British Sports Cars of San Luis Obispo and chose them to do the work. It took us a few years to save up enough money to get started, but we finally had enough by 2020.

Here I am with Justin Jurgens outside his shop. Justin runs the business side, while his father Peter is doing the actual work on the Bentley. They have a long history of doing amazing work on all types of classic British cars. We are very pleased with their work, which I've chronicled on a separate page here.

Sound System

Based on the recommendation of Justin Jurgens, I selected Angel Hurtado of Lombards Stereo in San Luis Obispo to install a new sound system. Selecting the right components and design has been a long journey with several wrong turns, road blocks, and backtracks. But it has been fun. I created a separate page just for the installation of the sound system here.

British European Auto of San Pedro

As I wrote on the page covering British Sports Cars' work, the generator went out on our long drive home from their shop in San Luis Obispo on 20 July 2022. The added demands of the new sound system and USB adaptor for my iPhone pushed it beyond its design capacity. I should have known. I'm sure there is still much I don't know about this car. Also on the fritz since its return home: air conditioning, power steering, headlights, turn signals, and reverse lights.

I wasted no time in finding another shop that I believed could make the repairs: British European Auto of San Pedro. They specialize in electrical work, according to their website.

I don't know how, but their website never came up when I was searching for a restoration shop between 2016 and 2020. I might have chosen them over British Sports Cars since their shop is much closer. No matter. British Sports Cars did great work.

Hemet Auto Air & Repair

After British European Auto told me that they do not work on air conditioning, I went back to the research stage. I discovered in the files a note that says the air conditioning system was installed in 1968, but it does not reveal who performed the installation. That was about a decade before my father-on-law purchased it in southern California, probably while B512CU was still in England. I think it must have been an aftermarket installation, not a Rolls-Royce job.

In April 2023, I found a shop here in Hemet that works on classic cars, although they said they'd never seen a Bentley S Series or Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. They showed me photos of their work on a few high-end classics, which were very nice cars, so I handed them the keys. They converted the system from its original R-12 freon to R-134a, and they ran tests to find leaks. They didn't find any under the bonnet, which is great news. I drove home happy with the a/c running full blast and cold.

Sadly, however, after a week it no longer blew cold air. It was still leaking from somewhere. I took it back, and during a closer inspection under the dash they found the red dye fluorescing around the evaporator. That was good news. The bad news was that they did not feel qualified to remove the dash to access the evaporator.

So for now, if I need a/c, I can load freon and have cool air for about a week. Not ideal.