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Written by Ollie Marriage
Gold organ stop airvents. That"s the way to celebrate your 100th birthday. Yep, Bentley cruises through its first century this year and is having an 18 carat celebration. But there"s more. In fact they"ve built an entire presentation case around the gold airvents, shaped exactly like a Conti GT. That"s right, Bentley is building a limited edition Continental GT and the main theme isn"t gold, but the 1930 Le Mans race. So it"s actually more of an 89th anniversary. That"s the year Tim Birkin first raced at Le Mans in a Blower" Bentley not a works car, but one he developed with supercharger firm Amherst Villiers, boosting the 4.5-litre"s power from 110bhp to 175bhp. He didn"t win, but used his extra speed to harry the Mercedes of Rudolf Caracciola into retirement, allowing the factory Speed Sixes to score a 1-2 victory. So this 100-strong limited run model celebrates not the race winner, but a non-factory car that retired after 138 laps. It"s all a bit convoluted, but rather lovely all the same because Blower" Bentleys are just fantastically cool.
Date written: 4 Mar 2019
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 15036
Gold organ stop airvents. That"s the way to celebrate your 100th birthday. Yep, Bentley cruises through its first century this year and is having an 18 carat celebration. But there"s more. In fact they"ve built an entire presentation case around the gold airvents, shaped exactly like a Conti GT. That"s right, Bentley is building a limited edition Continental GT and the main theme isn"t gold, but the 1930 Le Mans race. So it"s actually more of an 89th anniversary. That"s the year Tim Birkin first raced at Le Mans in a Blower" Bentley not a works car, but one he developed with supercharger firm Amherst Villiers, boosting the 4.5-litre"s power from 110bhp to 175bhp. He didn"t win, but used his extra speed to harry the Mercedes of Rudolf Caracciola into retirement, allowing the factory Speed Sixes to score a 1-2 victory. So this 100-strong limited run model celebrates not the race winner, but a non-factory car that retired after 138 laps. It"s all a bit convoluted, but rather lovely all the same because Blower" Bentleys are just fantastically cool.
Date written: 4 Mar 2019
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 15036