From W O Bentley's autobiography "Cracks were made - which bothered me at the time - that the BR1 was only an imitation Clerget. These originated from people who glanced only at the cam mechanism, which of course was the first thing they saw and, for ease of production, was the only similar feature... In fact the crank-case, crankshaft, method of securing the cylinders themselves as well as their heads, were all fundamentally different from the Clerget.". WOB was working for the Admiralty during WW1, and was attached to Gwynnes, who built the Clerget engine under licence for Sopwith and Nieuport, to try to improve the reliability of the Clerget, which was averaging about 15 hours at that time.
There's more detail in WOB's excellent autobiography "My Life and My Cars".
Pete
There's more detail in WOB's excellent autobiography "My Life and My Cars".
Pete