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Bentley Continental GT celebrates 20 years in production with one-off

Another automotive birthday this year: The Bentley Continental GT is getting a cake for being 20 years in production. The superluxe GT segment was neither new nor unpopulated when a Cypress Green Continental GT with VIN 20001 came off the production line in Crewe, England, in December 2003. It's just that nothing else combined as much speed, handling, and all-out luxury as the Bentley. That coupe also introduced the world to a 6.0-liter W12 engine making 550 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque back when the four-seat Ferrari 456M was getting 442 hp and 406 lb-ft. from its V12 and the two-seat Ferrari 575M was making "just" 508 hp and 434 lb-ft. from the same engine. With the 20th anniversary being celebrated with China dishware, it's fitting that Bentley used Auto Shanghai to introduce a one-off celebration in the form of a Continental GT S. This one comes in Magnetic Dark Grey Metallic over 22-inch black chrome and black wheels. Red accent lines embellish the mirror caps and form a hem around the base of the coupe. Inside, specialty division Mulliner's made a unique arrangement of Beluga (black) and Hotspur (red) leather against piano black trim. The bi-finish fascia puts Granite Stone above Grand Black veneer, separated by red pinstriping. Special badging and laser etching appears in places like the treadplates, center console, and veneers.  The carmaker plans events in the Western hemisphere at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in July, a global relay of Continental GTs crossing three continents to pass a custom Bentley baton. There will also be drive hubs at the HQ in Crewe and in Geneva, Switzerland where invited guests can drive all three Continental generations, the first- and second-generation examples coming from the Bentley Heritage Collection. The culmination comes in another one-off Continental GT inspired by the first unit produced that will debut during Monterey Car Week.    

Weekly Recap: Mercedes continues the pseudo-coupe craze with AMG-tuned CUV

But as BMW's X6 has demonstrated, sport sells in in the crossover segment, and Mercedes is giving the people what they want. BMW proved there is a market for crossover utility vehicles designed to look like coupes – as much as a vehicle with four doors and noticeable ground clearance can look like a coupe, anyway. Now comes the reply from Mercedes-Benz: the GLE Coupe. The rakish crossover is a harbinger of things to come from Mercedes, as it begins the company's transition to a new nomenclature and marks the debut of the AMG Sport line. It also continues the recent coupe craze. Designers from many automakers, like Nissan and Volkswagen, have increasingly turned to swoopy, dramatic styling to make utility vehicles and sedans seem more desirable. By revealing the GLE 450 AMG Sport model first, Mercedes is clearly hoping to cast the GLE Coupe as a sportier, lifestyle-oriented alternative in its lineup of beefy crossovers and SUVs. Mercedes used the word "sport," or a variation of it, 53 times in its press release, so uh yeah, it's sporty. It's not an empty promise: Benz means business with the AMG Sport line. This GLE Coupe gets a 3.0-liter biturbo V6 rated at 362 horsepower and 384 pound-feet of torque paired with Mercedes' new nine-speed automatic transmission, and it runs with 4Matic all-wheel drive. Specs on the other GLE Coupe models were not disclosed. But as BMW's X6 has demonstrated, sport sells in in the crossover segment, and Mercedes is giving the people what they want. After all, more than 260,000 people have bought X6s since 2008, and Mercedes wants a piece of that. From certain angles, the GLE Coupe even looks vaguely like an X6. "This is really a vehicle that is all about status," said Dave Sullivan, product analysis manager for research firm AutoPacific. "You can buy a SUV that doesn't have the inherent qualities of a SUV, such as cargo hauling. People will likely be drawn to the looks. Coupes are all the rage." BMW, however, isn't running from the fight, and the updated 2015 X6 is arriving in showrooms this month. It also added a smaller sibling, the X4, to its coupe-crossover stable in July. The GLE Coupe arrives next year, though Mercedes hasn't specified exactly when it will hit showrooms from the factory in Alabama, or specified details on the rest of the non-AMG Sport models. In 2008, it was surprising the X6 was a hit. In 2015, it will be even more surprising if the GLE Coupe isn't.

2020 Bentley Continental GT V8 First Drive Review | 8 is the new baker's dozen

Certain objects are so well known for arriving in groups of twelve that their dodecameralism is almost presumed. This list includes eggs, donuts, roses, inches, hours, months, human ribs, days of Christmas and, correlatively, drummers drumming. We can add to that group the number of cylinders under the hood of a contemporary Bentley. Since 2003, when the venerable British brand rolled out its modern Continental GT, it has sold more than 70,000 of these models, a notable number with an inventive, twin-turbocharged 12-cylinder engine, arrayed in a W configuration. Unfortunately, the flying-B brand has been having some difficulty meeting certification requirements for its alluring, all-new, 12-cylinder-equipped Continental GT coupe and convertible, which have yet to appear in the States, despite a full two years having lapsed since their unveiling. Fortunately, to stem the tide of demand, the crew from Crewe has certified a version of the Porsche-designed 542-horsepower, 568 pound-feet 4.0-liter, twin-turbo V8 from the Panamera for use in their new two-door, backed up by an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission. It will be available for purchase here, this fall — before it is offered to any other market — by those with 220,000 spare dollars. Even more fortunate, we just had the chance to drive it through the coastal, mountainous and curvy vineyard regions of Northern California, and we can assure you that, while we still believe Bentley GTs deserve twelve cylinders, eight is the new baker's dozen. Unless you've spent extended time piloting the Continental GT W12 through some of the most beautiful mountainous regions of Europe and America, as we have, you might not notice the one-third reduction in cylinders, or the 84-horsepower depreciation in output. According to Bentley, the less powerful but lighter motor adds only 0.2 seconds to the 0-60 run (3.8 versus 3.6 for the coupe, 3.9 versus 3.7 for the convertible) not enough of a differential to tip our own internal accelerometer. It also foregoes cresting 200 mph like its bigger brother can, not that there's anywhere you can hit these speeds safely in America anyway. The V8 also, as referenced above, subtracts a couple hundred pounds from the total weight of the GT, not that this matters all that much in a vehicle that weighs 2.5 tons, but it does take a modicum of gravitational pressure off the front axle. Is it noticeable on first blush?