2000 Bentley Azure Wide Body on 2040-cars

Auto blog

First new Bentley Blower built since 1930 is now being tested

Just over a year after announcing the program, Bentley has finished building its first Blower car since 1930. It's called "Car Zero" since it's not one of the 12 customer cars. Instead, this first car is a prototype that will undergo testing before the customer cars begin production. Bentley says this car took 40,000 hours to complete. The company figured out how to build it based on existing tooling and blueprints, as well as laser scans of the components in the company's 1929 race car on which the continuation models will be based. The company collaborated with a variety of outside companies for help with the frame, radiator shroud and leaf springs. The frame was built by a company that builds and restores boilers for steam engines. Bentley itself also built a custom stand so it could hook up the recreated 4.5-liter supercharged four-cylinder to its modern-day engine dynamometers for break-in. Now that this prototype has been completed, Bentley will begin testing it for durability. The planned testing should recreate just under 22,000 miles of regular driving and nearly 5,000 miles of track driving. The company will also do a top speed run with it. Once testing is complete, Bentley will start building the 12 customer cars, all of which have been sold and specified. While many are likely excited about this new Bentley, there are a handful of car enthusiasts that probably don't share the excitement. Earlier this year, several of these wealthy enthusiasts, including fashion mogul Ralph Lauren, sent a letter to Bentley expressing concerns that these continuation cars will reduce the value, both monetary and intrinsic, of the original cars. The complaint obviously hasn't had an effect on Bentley's plans. Related Video:

Watch Bentley hood ornament emerge to tease next Flying Spur

Thanks to Bentley's premium customization branch, Mulliner, the current Flying Spur can be equipped with nearly any feature a customer wants. But there is one feature its bigger brother, the Mulsanne, has that it doesn't: a proper hood ornament. That's about to change, however, as a teaser video and image shows the next Flying Spur will have a retractable flying B at its nose. Bentley released two teasers for the upcoming model reveal, one a sketched silhouette of the car, the other a video of an ornament emerging from the hood. The ornament will be a departure from the outgoing model, which has the flat Bentley badge on its nose. Surely Rolls-Royce fanatics will have some fun with this, but we're here for it. The more hood ornaments the better. Teaser sketches never reveal much, but there are a couple small things we might be able to pull from the dark figure. It appears the front fascia could be more blunt and vertical than the outgoing model. The overall stance of the car could be going for a longer, lower and sleeker profile. The rear also appears to be more shapely, with slightly more pronounced lips and edges. But again, these are guesses at this point, as sketches can be misleading. We expect additional teasers will give us more information in the near future. Look for the all-new Flying Spur to debut later this year. News Source: Bentley Design/Style Bentley Luxury Sedan bentley flying spur

Bentley preps 'Centennary Specification' for all models built in 2019

For the entirety of Bentley's 100th year in business, the English carmaker will adorn its products with a Centenary Specification. The package consists of unique badging with specially developed Centenary Gold badge highlights, available Centenary Gold thread for the headrest logos, contrast stitching and cross stitching, and a "centenary welcome light" outside the vehicle. The in-house craftsmen have also developed unique embroidery. Bentley says the gold hue was inspired by metalwork on vintage models like the 1919 EXP 2 (pictured, red and silver) and 1929 Birkin Blower (pictured, green), the latter one of the company's Le Mans winners driven by Sir Henry "Tim" Birkin. The hue possesses an "elegant warm tone and a deep fluid shadow." The steering wheel badge, key fob, shift knob, and wheel center caps feature the tinted ring. The "B" badge on the radiator surround also features "1919-2019" script, and that script is found on the tread plates, too. For those who don't know, eponymous founder Walter Owen Bentley's engineering career began with locomotives — which he loved more than cars at one point — and motorcycles, before settling on automobiles. He bought his first car in 1910, a French DFP, and after improving it himself, set a 10-lap record at the Brooklands circuit. In 1912 he opened a DFP franchise with his brother Horace Milner as Bentley & Bentley, and further upgraded the car with a new piston design that was 88 percent aluminum and 12 percent copper. The Royal Naval Air Service adopted Bentley's piston design and Bentley's re-designed Clerget airplane engines, dubbed the Bentley Rotary. After the war, Bentley refocused on cars, and in 1919 released the 3-Litre, which boasted features like a cross-flow head, overhead cams working four valves per cylinder, and twin plugs in each cylinder. The company delivered the first production model in 1921, then went racing and won the second edition of Le Mans in 1924. That is how Bentley began to become "Bentley, ahem ...", and here we are. Next year, on July 10, the company plans to celebrate the feat appropriately. Related Video: