Harry Varley

A remarkable eighty-year adventure spanning the golden age of twentieth-century mechanical and motor-vehicle engineering. One of the three-man team that designed the iconic 3-litre Bentley, fifty-seven years later Harry Varley created a new engine for the same car. He died, aged ninety-three, two days after being told it met its design objectives.

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A remarkable eighty-year adventure spanning the golden age of twentieth-century mechanical and motor-vehicle engineering. Born into an ecclesiastical family, Harry Varley had a burning ambition to be the best engineer he could. He was one of the three-man team that designed the iconic 3-litre Bentley and fifty-seven years later he created a new engine for the same car. A skilled draughtsman and designer, he worked at multiple companies on cars, aircraft, and agricultural machinery. He designed the badge which appears on every Vauxhall, a revolutionary internal-combustion-engine piston and was employed on projects at Cubitt, Crossley and Streamline Cars. On secondment in the Second World War, he helped develop the largest diesel engine made by Perkins Engines, balloon winches and gun mountings, finishing at Rolls-Royce where he retired as chief planning engineer. The design and manufacture of his Varley engine took nine years of grit and determination. Having received reports that it had achieved its design objectives, he died aged ninety-three, his life's work complete.