2007 Bentley Continental Gt Gt Awd 2dr Convertible on 2040-cars

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The Bentley Bacalar went from a sketch to a 650-hp roadster in nine months

Bentley's Mulliner division cemented its status as a modern-day coachbuilder when it unveiled the Bacalar, a two-seater roadster loosely based on the Continental GT. Nearly every part that drivers will see and feel is specific to the model, including the body panels and most of the interior, yet the company created it in just nine months. Mulliner has worked on many one- and few-off models in the past, it notably turned the stately Mulsanne into a six-seater limousine in 2016, but the Bacalar (pictured) takes customization to an entirely new level. Repeated requests from its most loyal clients convinced Bentley to expand the scope of its coachbuilding division. "We felt a strong demand from our high-end customers. They asked again and again, 'can you do something very special?' They weren't talking about one of a hundred, but one of 10 or even one of one," explained Stefan Sielaff, the company's lead designer, in an interview with Autoblog. He added the Bacalar project started shortly after Bentley introduced the EXP 100 GT in 2019 to celebrate its 100th birthday. This explains some of the visual parallels between the two cars. While the concept was electric, the sold-out production model receives a mighty, 650-horsepower W12 engine because Bentley couldn't create a suitable battery-powered drivetrain in the short amount of time it had to make the roadster a reality. Sielaff stressed the effort his team put into making the Bacalar in nine months shouldn't be underestimated. "We had to make sure the car was road-legal, homologated, and certified. The car you would have seen at the Geneva auto show is literally what the customer will get. It's not a crazy show car. The only difference will be the colors and the materials, because we will work with each customer to make an individual statement," he said. In the United States, the Bacalar will be imported under the Show and Display law, like the McLaren Speedtail. The expedited design process meant the 12 future Bacalar owners signed the dotted line after seeing only digital renderings of the car. They weren't shown the final product until much later. Their enthusiasm is encouraging; it tells Sielaff there's a tremendous appetite for one- and few-off Bentley models among wealthy clients.

Bentley's first electric car will arrive in 2025 at the earliest

Now that it's back in the black, Bentley is busily planning its move into the electric car segment. The company's chief executive shed light on how his team will link the past and the future. When it comes to new products, company boss Adrian Hallmark told Automotive News Europe that "it's all about electrification." The first Bentley with a plug is the Bentayga Hybrid unveiled at the 2018 Geneva Motor Show. Looking ahead, an electric car will join the range, but executives haven't decided what form it will take, or what it will be powered by. Several options remain on the table. What's certain is that Bentley won't stuff an electric powertrain into one of the cars in its current portfolio. "We could take one of the existing nameplates, and that could be the first electric car, but we wouldn't take an existing car and try to fit batteries into it, because there's a compromise from a range and efficiency point of view," Hallmark explained. The challenge isn't simply to make an electric Bentley; the British firm wants to ensure its first battery-powered model credibly lives up to the badge on its nose. That means it needs to blend effortless power with an acceptable amount of driving range. Bentley is part of Volkswagen, so using one of the platforms in the group's growing arsenal of architectures isn't out of the question. And, Hallmark affirmed engineers will take advantage of the innovative packaging possibilities made possible by electric powertrains. He explained the firm isn't about to release a Mini, but an electric Bentley could have a smaller footprint than, say, a Mulsanne while offering a comparable amount of interior space. He cited the Jaguar I-Pace as an example, which he said is nearly 14 inches shorter than Land Rover's Range Rover, yet is about as spacious inside because electric motors require less space than a comparable gasoline- or diesel-burning engine. The trade-off is that an electric Bentley would need a sizable battery pack, and designers would likely have to put the car on stilts to leave enough room in the cabin for people and gear if they were to pen an electric car in 2020. Solid-state battery technology will solve that problem when it's ready for production, according to Hallmark, though he didn't reveal whether he's open to waiting for the new chemistry or if Bentley's first electric car will ship with a lithium-ion battery pack.

Bentley unveils 202-mph Continental GT Speed Convertible

That purple haze all in your eyes is the 2013 Bentley GT Speed Convertible. The cynical view is, "Bah, take a GT Speed and cut the top off. There. Pass the salt, please...". But when you're Bentley, more than 90 years old, and charging these kinds of ducats, there's no reason to take the cynic's shortcut. So of course the GT Speed Convertible gets all of the Speed-family accoutrements: matrix radiator grille hiding a twin-turbocharged, 6.0-liter W12 with 616 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque, eight-speed ZF transmission enabling 15 percent better fuel economy, beefier lowered suspension, larger rifled exhaust tips, inlet manifold finished in black crackle and a Mulliner Driving Specification cabin.
Among the many refinements added to the convertible, though, are neck warmers in the seats, the 21-inch wheels unique to this car, class-leading stiffness - admittedly, it's a very small class, but its torsional rigidity of 22,500 Nm/degree is only 500 Nm below that of the Lamborghini Gallardo coupe. The stiffening required to achieve that number will undoubtedly have something to do with the 485-pound weight gain over the GT Speed Coupe.
Still, when the GT Speed Convertible weighs 5,500 pounds, what's a few hundred between friends? More importantly, the weight doesn't scuttle performance: 0-60 comes in 4.1 seconds, a tenth shy of the coupe. The gap stretches as you approach The Ton, the GT Speed Convertible needing just 9.7 seconds to get there, the coupe just nine seconds. Trust us, though, everyone will be too busy blasting along to notice. Everyone will want to pack light, however, because the Speed Convertible loses 3.5 cubic feet of trunk space. It remains the fastest four-seat convertible in the world with a 202-mph top speed.