British Racing Green Mountains

Hemmings Nation acolyte and nationally acclaimed railroad photographer Jim Shaughnessy hasn’t just witnessed the last of big American steam assaulting the Rockies. He’s now also gotten an eyeful of something that 99 percent of Earth’s population, more or less, has never seen: A brace of big Bentleys, the 3.0-liter variety and others, from the glory years of W.O. himself and Le Mans domination. Jim and his wife stopped in at the Trappe Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont, and just happened to run into the New England Region of the International Bentley Drivers Club, which was using the lodge as a base on its annual Fall Tour.

Absolutely fantastic. These latter-day Bentley Boys and Girls had driven from Mount Washington, New Hampshire, to the Trappe lodge, built by the storied musical family from Austria who inspired “The Sound of Music.” Jim tells us that a couple such Bentleys had been shipped via container from Australia to tour New England. Are you smiling so broadly that your monocle’s biting your cheek? Visit www.bdc-ner.org to learn more about the club. You can learn more about Jim’s much better-known photo subject, American railroads, in the March 2010 issue of Hemmings Motor News. Check the regular feature entitled Wings, Rails and Keels.