Driven to succeed

Jack Barclay survived a career in motor racing to sell Rolls-Royces to royalty and rock stars – and everyone in between. Neil Lyndon describes the heady days of the most glamorous Mayfair emporium

He might have been called Lucky Jack. Few lives have been more charmed. For 40 years, from the end of the Roaring Twenties to the end of the Swinging Sixties, a bright thread of British life was embodied in the person of Jack Barclay. It shone most vividly in the magical emporium for luxury cars he ran on Berkeley Square in Mayfair. From aristocrats to footballers and stars of stage and screen, the customers for Jack Barclay’s Rolls-Royces and Bentleys amounted to a roll-call of the luminaries of those fast-changing times.

Born at the end of the 19th century, John Donald Barclay – always known as “Jack” – lied about his age to enlist for the First World War and saw service with the Royal Flying Corps. As soon as the shooting stopped, the pure fluke of having survived led him to risk his life in motor racing. 

“From aristocrats to footballers and stars of stage and screen, the customers for Jack Barclay’s Rolls-Royces and Bentleys amounted to a roll-call of the luminaries of those fast-changing times”

Being slight and small, he made an ideal passenger in motorcycle sidecar racing, which is still today a special preserve for headcases but in the early 1920s as dangerous as flying a Sopwith Camel in aerial combat. In one of his first races, the outfit turned over at speed and crashed into a brick wall. Both rider and passenger survived, perhaps because they were wearing bowler hats as head protection.

Jack went on to indulge himself as a driver in every type of motorsport and was many times extricated from the remains of machines which had zoomed out of control. A spectacular skid from the top to the bottom of the banking at the Surrey Brooklands circuit, with multiple spins that pirouetted him through a squadron of following cars, was remembered as unsurvivable by all who witnessed it. Nothing daunted, Jack Barclay won another race later that day at an average speed of over 106 mph. Seventeen drivers, passengers and spectators lost their lives at Brooklands during the 1920s. Jack Barclay was crazily lucky not to add to the number.

“In one of his first races, the outfit turned over at speed and crashed into a brick wall. Both rider and passenger survived, perhaps because they were wearing bowler hats as head protection”

He then did his best to repair that omission by attempting to break speed records, often at Pendine Sands on the shores of Carmarthen Bay, where J.G. Parry-Thomas was to be killed in 1927. When Jack wasn’t being dragged out of blazing wrecks, he was amassing a treasure chest of trophies. In 1925, driving Vauxhalls, he set no fewer than eight world records.

By this time, he had also gone into business with a partner selling Vauxhall, Rolls-Royce, Hispano-Suiza and Sunbeam cars on Great Portland Street in central London. The lure of high-stakes thrills remained unstaunched however.

Jack’s racing exploits had brought him into contact with the legendary W.O. Bentley, founder of the firm of the same name and Woolf Barnato, Bentley driver, winner of successive Le Mans races and subsequently chairman of Bentley. Famously charming, Jack parlayed these connections to good effect when, in 1927 he opened Jack Barclay in George Street, Hanover Square selling Rolls-Royces and Bentleys.

Rolls-Royces were already known as “the best car in the world” but many other companies were in the running for that title – including Bugatti, Duesenberg, Hispano-Suiza, Maybach and others. Those others mostly went bust after the Great Crash of 1929 leaving Rolls-Royce pre-eminent, especially when Bentley was merged into the firm. Jack’s dealership soon became not just the leading salesroom in London for Rolls-Royce & Bentley cars. He was on the way to making it the most famous dealership in the world.

He also effectively invented the concept of after-sales service and customer care. As reported in Motor Sport, “Mr. Barclay says he considers the selling of a car merely as the commencement of business relations with a customer. ‘Sooner or later,’ he says, ‘that customer will want another car, and it is up to the seller to conduct his business in such a way that there is no hesitation for the customer to come back the next time.’

Jack had now put in place the twin pillars of the 40 years of business success which were to follow – selling the best cars in the world to customers who were made to feel like the most important people in the world.

Before the Second World War, Rolls-Royces were the preserve of royalty, the aristocracy and the moneyed classes. HRH the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII, set the fashion with a Rolls-Royce Phantom I. He was followed in similar style by the Duke of Gloucester and by the wealthy social climber Henry “Chips” Channon - all bought from Jack. Almost every major landowner in the country became his customer. One had the boot modified and air-conditioned to carry his Labradors. Every year, Jack Barclay placed himself in the same bracket as his customers by treating himself to a new Rolls-Royce and adorning it with his personal JB 1 number-plate. 

With the Second World War approaching Jack sent his family to the country but remained himself in London where he acquired the renowned coach-building firms James Young and Gurney Nutting. These again were astute moves. When the war ended, Jack was extraordinarily well-placed to restore the Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars that had been stored during the hostilities, thus generating a valuable stock of used vehicles for the business. He also acquired majestic new premises in which to display and sell them.

“The showroom at 18 Berkeley Square became a landmark of London life, it was admired by tourists as if it was a palace”

The showroom at 18 Berkeley Square, on the corner with Bruton Street, became a landmark of London life like Jack Dempsey’s Bar & Grill on New York’s Broadway. With door handles like a Florentine palace and artfully theatrical lighting to display its sumptuous wares. The showroom was admired by tourists as if it was a palace. A presentation folio of three Rolls-Royces and Bentley coachwork designs by James Young Ltd. were presented to Princess Margaret in 1952.

International stars staying at the nearby Dorchester, Claridge’s and Connaught hotels would do more than window-shop at Jack Barclay. Sammy Davis Jr, Grace Kelly and Steve McQueen all drove around in Rolls-Royces from Jack Barclay on their visits to London.

The place also attracted a new wave of customers as Britain grew more egalitarian.

“Sammy Davis Jr, Grace Kelly and Steve McQueen all drove around in Rolls-Royces from Jack Barclay on their visits to London”

Meanwhile, the stars of Britain’s new pop music business, such as Cilla Black, all felt required to make a statement about their status by buying a Roller. Many may not have been entirely in their right minds at the moment of purchase. Christine McVeigh of Fleetwood Mac took a shine to a convertible when she glimpsed it through Jack Barclay's window and insisted on buying it there and then, driving it out of the showroom and scaring herself half to death in London's traffic. 

In the mid 1960s, Jack bought an existing Rolls Royce business in Oxford, and redeveloped a beautiful building and prestigious Rolls Royce showroom into J.D. Barclay. His son Anthony took the business on from his father.

The Berkeley Square showroom continues in the name by which it was always known - a monument to an extraordinary epoch and an extraordinary man

Journalist and author, Neil Lyndon, has written about motoring and cars for publications such as The Sunday Times and The Telegraph.

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