Bentley is one of the crucial revered automotive firms on the planet, so how has it gathered such a status? It’s considered one of Britain’s oldest manufacturers, founded in 1919 by W.O Bentley. Despite its current headquarters in Crewe within the North of England, its incorporation was actually in Cricklewood, North London, where its most iconic road and race cars were built.
Yet its grand status was not born out of constructing luxury saloons or the Royal Family’s state vehicles like today. As an alternative, it was W.O Bentley’s love of racing. Only just a few years after its incorporation, Bentley began dominating European sports automotive racing with its huge and powerful racers just like the aptly named ‘Bentley Blower’. It went on to grow to be inextricably linked to bourgeois culture in England, with the legend of the ‘Bentley Boys’ encapsulating the indulgent period leading as much as World War II.
By the good depression, nonetheless, Bentley’s funds were in a dire state, and after failing to make loan payments was put into receivership before being snapped up by rival Rolls-Royce. W.O Bentley retained his position after the sale, but soon left to work for British company Lagonda.
Today Bentley still represents the upper echelons of the automotive world, specialising in luxury sports cars that channel its envious heritage. It may not be a part of Rolls-Royce, but has within the interim been picked up by the vast Volkswagen Group, forming a part of its flagship collection of brands that include supercar marques like Porsche, Bugatti and Lamborghini.
Below we run down 10 of a very powerful Bentleys in its illustrious history; ones that for various reasons encapsulate the magic of that bygone era.
Bentley 4.5L ‘Blower’ Bentley (1926/1927)
The Bentley 4.5L ‘Blower’, because it is colloquially known, is maybe the defining moment of the legend surrounding Bentley. W.O Bentley had been successfully winning races for a while, but racing driver Sir Henry ‘Tim’ Burton insisted that he would construct and field supercharged versions of the increasingly outclassed Bentley 4.5.
These were considered the fastest cars of their time, racing against Mercedes on the very apex of period racing. In fact, neither Bentley’s ‘Blowers’ or chief rival Mercedes were known for his or her reliability, which meant that in 1930 Bentley’s lesser Speed Six model took the lion’s share of motorsport success within the era.
Actually, the Blower would never actually win a race, however the rebellious nature of them would proceed to be a driving force of the character Bentley still channels today.
Bentley Speed Six (1929/1930)
The automotive that beat out the Blowers was W.O’s Speed Six, an enormous racer that was known on the time as ‘the tank’ on account of its massive dimensions and extreme weight. In fact, to be able to motivate a lot weight to winning races was huge reserves of power, and on this case Bentley’s latest Speed Six had the grunt to back it up.
The Speed Six factory racer utilised a modified version of the road automotive’s 6.5-litre straight six, which produced 200hp on the time. They ran on a 3,353mm-wheelbase chassis (a seven-seater BMW X7 SUV, for context, has a 3,105mm wheelbase) and won at Le Mans in 1929 and 1930.
Bentley also produced the chassis and engine for road-going applications, often employing coachworks builder H.J Mulliner to create the bodywork and interior.
Bentley Turbo R
After years of rule under Rolls-Royce, often just selling little greater than a basic re-badge job, the 1985 Bentley Turbo R was revealed as a more sporting and more ‘Bentley’-like model that channelled a few of its racing heritage. It was based on the Mulsanne, which got here out five years earlier, but installed a more powerful engine and sporting chassis elements to make it essentially the most dynamic Bentley in a long time.
The Turbo R was in production for nearly 15 years, ending on a selected high with the Turbo RT Mulliner. This last-generation model installed a variety of further upgrades including a latest turbocharger for the 6.75-litre V8 engine that produced a crazy 420bhp.
As a part of the upgrade it also picked up flared wheel arches, 18-inch wheels and chassis upgrades that will eventually find themselves on one of the crucial iconic Bentley coupes of its pre-VW era: the Continental R. Yet this lesser-known predecessor set all of it in motion, with only 56 units built – all in the ultimate yr of Turbo R production.
Bentley Continental T
Before the Continental name was related to the curvaceous coupe of Bentley’s modern era, the moniker was last used on the two-door coupe version of its full-sized saloon. The Continental was available in various forms, but essentially the most interesting is the Continental T, which differed from its stablemates by introducing a shorter wheelbase and more dynamic stance.
From 1998, the Continental T featured the identical 420hp version of the 6.75-litre turbocharged V8 engine, in addition to similar flared arches and 18-inch alloy wheels. A Mulliner derivative was launched in 1999 with a yet further honed chassis setup, and even stiffer suspension.
In fact, this was still the age that Bentley’s were properly hand-made, perhaps most closely resembling the Bentleys that W.O would recognise some 60 years prior.
Bentley Arnage T
Successor to the Turbo R and the last Bentley to be built at the side of a Rolls-Royce derivative, the Arnarge is the model that brought Bentley into the twenty first Century. It also coincided with the business being bought out by the vast Volkswagen conglomerate. The Arnage was available in an enormous number of variants, being sold between 1998 and 2009.
For a brief period, the Arnage lost its 6.75-litre V8 engine and as an alternative utilised a 4.4-litre engine borrowed from BMW, but its VW ownership soon saw a stop to that. Bentley invested in modernising the old L-series V8 and produced some quite astonishing results.
Probably the most powerful Arnage T Final Edition offered an astounding 507bhp and 1000nm of torque, making it equal to the Mercedes S65 AMG because the torque-iest automotive on sale. That was until Bentley brought out a short-lived two-door version called the Brooklands.
Bentley Brooklands
The Brooklands wasn’t the primary or indeed most opulent Bentley coupe, however it was one of the crucial auspicious. Released in 2008, it was based on the Arnage, Bentley’s flagship saloon on the time, and was due to this fact useful to its quite unique collection of attributes. Considered one of those was Bentley’s usual 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine, but here tuned to its highest outputs yet. It produced 530bhp, but an excellent more impressive 1050nm of torque – essentially the most of any production automotive on the time.
Look past the numbers, though, and the Brooklands was more revered for its entirely hand-built nature. Each had hand-formed rear wings that were physically too big to be stamped within the factory, while the inside was entirely finished by hand. This contrasted against modern tech, resembling its huge carbon-composite brakes and pillarless window opening.
Only 550 units were produced, each bridging the gap between past and present like few others.
Bentley Continental Supersport
The 2003 Bentley Continental GT has often been credited because the turning point for the Bentley brand. It brought scale to a manufacturer that was more specialised in producing tens of cars, moderately than hundreds, and while the unique was lambasted upon launch for lacking a certain Bentley-ness (and maybe moderately an excessive amount of Volkswagen-ness) it was the unique 2009 Supersport that signalled Bentley’s despondent nature was still alive and well.
Constructing on the 6-litre W12 engine present in lesser Conti GTs with greater turbos and a much more focused chassis setup, it produced an enormous 621bhp. This was put to the bottom via a newly rear-biased, all-wheel drive system that split its torque 60% rear to 40% front. This fundamentally modified the best way the Supersport drove, giving it a superb status of being a more rebellious Bentley – one matched with an incredibly supercar-like soundtrack from its rifled exhaust suggestions.
Bentley Mulsanne Speed
The Mulsanne was Bentley’s last automotive to make use of the enduring 6.75-litre V8, bringing to finish the production of an engine that was in a position to trace its roots back so far as 1959. In its final twin-turbocharged ‘Speed’ form, the L-series V8 produced 530bhp and an astounding 811lb ft of torque, making light work of its near-three-tonne mass.
In fact, despite the Speed moniker, the Mulsanne wasn’t about sporting driving characteristics. As an alternative it was about providing essentially the most opulent old-money driving experience possible. As a direct substitute of the Arnage, and due to this fact built on its line on the Crewe factory, the Mulsanne didn’t just feature Bentley’s traditional engine, but in addition its truly British hand-built mentality.
The Mulsanne was the last of the old-world Bentleys.
Bentley Continental GT3
If the Bentley Continental Supersport was the model that exposed Bentley’s true spirit, it was the later GT3 that proved it might be pushed and pulled in all styles of latest directions. Powered not by Bentley’s W12 engine, but a twin-turbocharged V8, the GT3 shrugged off a variety of mass in its development to be widely commended as essentially the most dynamic Bentley of the fashionable age.
This was apt, though, because the Continental GT3 coincided with Bentley’s return to racing. It raced a GT3-regulation version of the continental GT in international racing series, from the FIA World Endurance Championship, which included Le Mans, to separate international events just like the Australian Bathurst 24hrs.
Yet while the GT3 may not have been a real homologation special, it did channel the spirit of the race automotive greater than any Bentley had done in generations.
Bentley Bacalar
An enormous a part of Bentley’s history has been surrounded by the notion of coachworks, with long-time partner Mulliner creating a few of history’s most iconic Bentley models. Now, long after Bentley brought the Mulliner name in-house, the marque is reverting back to real coachworks projects, of which the open-top Bacalar was the primary to be revealed.
Despite being named after Italian salted cod (yes, look it up), the Bacalar is a vision into what Bentley sees itself producing – high-end, low-production models which are more eloquent and finely detailed than even its luxurious base range.
An example with the Bacalar is its driftwood interior elements, which utilise thousand-year-old petrified woods for certain trim pieces of the inside. Not only that, however the Bacalar can be touted to be essentially the most dynamic Bentley of its latest era. Yet it seems only a lucky few will ever have the option to check that theory out.
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