2005 Bentley Continental Gt Automatic 2-door Coupe on 2040-cars

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Bentley designers show off how custom the custom coachbuilt Bentley Mulliner Bacalar can be

One of the draws of the Bentley Mulliner Bacalar, besides its gorgeous two-seat roadster style, is that it's a unique custom coachbuilt car. The company touts the fact that not a single piece of the exterior is shared with another Bentley. It will always be particularly rare, too, since only 12 will be built. But the unique, custom nature of the car extends beyond that to giving customers nearly free rein with interior components and colors. To show this off, Bentley designers created six gorgeous example models that have us wishing the company would make a few more than 12 Bacalars. Speaking broadly, customers will get to choose unique exterior paint, but the interior is perhaps the most interesting, as choices will include bespoke fabrics, piping, stitching and dash materials. The first of these shown in the gallery is one of our favorites, named Clerkenwell. It features two shades of green leather, and some contrasting green tweed fabric on the seats and the dash, and it's matched with huge swaths of a light wood veneer that stretches from the dash to the doors. The Greenwich interior that follows is also eye-catching with its oxblood leather, gray tweed, and two kinds of 5,000-year-old Riverwood veneer, part of it left as open pore, and the other part given a gloss finish. The other trims in order of appearance are Fulton, Menlo, Brickell, and Randwick. These show additional variations on leather color, and some of them swap the wood veneer for carbon fiber, or the tweed for Alcantara. And of course, all six of these cars get their own corresponding paint colors. Let us know in the comments which ones you like the best, and here's hoping Bacalar buyers get really creative with their cars. Related Video:      

Bentley Continental GT Speed Convertible photos hit web early

It was Indiana Jones and that whole ark episode that gave us the best example of what happens after leaks: once you break the seal, all hell breaks loose and there's no way you're putting it back. We aren't sure who lifted the lid, but official photos of the 2013 Bentley Continental GT Speed Convertible showed up on Flickr last week, and so here we are presenting them to you.
If it follows the Bentley playbook as the last GT Speed - and we have no reason to believe it won't - beyond the lack of a top there won't be much difference between it and the coupe than a few minor numerals. There will be a W12 in front with 616 horsepower and 590 foot-pounds of torque running through an eight-speed transmission, and the dash from standstill to 60 miles per hour will clock in somewhere around four seconds. That's some 21-inch rolling stock setting up the stance, and unless it's gotten slower than the last GT Speed, ultimate velocity with the top up should be at least 200 mph.
It will be undeniably fast. As for the paint, you can make up your own minds about that while you peep its angles in the high-res gallery. We'll find out the rest when the world's purplest droptop is revealed at the Detroit Auto Show.

Bentley and Skoda capitalize on the coronation

Most likely, King Charles won’t be riding in a Czech-made Skoda this weekend when he is crowned king of England, even though the car company has introduced a Coronation Edition in a “Royal Green” color “in honor of the Coronation.” However, should they ride to the fancy investiture at Westminster Abbey in a home-grown Bentley, the royal tushes of he and Queen Camilla may be resting on bespoke, handcrafted “cabin cushions” created by BentleyÂ’s “Dream Factory” to celebrate the occasion (not likely, since the royal couple is expected to travel in the 260-year-old Gold State Coach). The upcoming, day-long event has inspired lots of tchotchkes of course — chocolate Charleses, crowns for dogs, Lego kings — as well as an outpouring of affection by the public and commercial opportunities to sell them things royalty-related. On the matter of the new KingÂ’s rear end, the Bentley cushions are described as being quite fabulous. It took craftsmen three days to embroider them with the special “Coronation Emblem,” which consists, according to the firm, "of two separate thread colours ... three different colourways of the emblem were used, to contrast the individually-selected hides for different colours of cushions to match the interiors of the Bentleys that will use them." The colors of the cushions include Cricketball and Cumbrian Green, accented by piping of Beluga, Porpoise, Newmarket Tan and Imperial Blue respectively. Should they require more modern transportation, a fleet of Bentleys will be on hand for special guests.  Regarding the Skodas, the Royal Green color will be available to order by commoners as well as by the royal couple, available on selected Superb, Kodiaq and Octavia models in the UK.