2005 Bentley Continental Gt Coupe 2-door 6.0l on 2040-cars

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First Bentley to race at Le Mans sells for over $3.7 million

What's the big deal with Bentley? After all, the luxury marque has spent much of its life as a Volkswagen sub-brand or Rolls-Royce understudy. Well the big deal is, in short, racing provenance. In its very early days, before it became an nouveau riche status symbol, Bentley staked a claim as a force in the motorsports world. And people who remember that still hold the brand in high regard. Case in point: The first Bentley to race at the 24 Hours of Le Mans has just sold for more than $3.7 million. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the famed French enduro, hailed by many as the greatest auto race in the world. In 1923 Bentley 3-Litre, chassis 141 became the first of many to enter the race. In fact, it is billed as the first international entrant, period.  Prior to its arrival at Circuit de la Sarthe, the car had been raced by WWI veteran and Bentley dealer John Duff at the Double 12 Hour at Brooklands. At the time 24-hour races had been outlawed in the U.K. due to noise so the race was divided into two segments. Duff set 38 international records as he covered 2,082 miles at an average 86.79 mph. Based on that success, he asked founder W.O. Bentley to help him prep the car for a new day-long race in France. Duff and his co-driver Frank Clement, a Bentley factory test driver, managed to finished fourth despite a hole in the fuel tank caused by a rock on the track in this pre-paved era. Along the way, they set a lap record of 66.69 mph average speed. Duff and several other racers became known as the Bentley Boys, a cadre of free-wheeling daredevil rascals. Bentley, Duff and Clement returned the following year and won the race outright. The Bentley Boys would then set a four-year streak from 1927-30 at the fledgling event, cementing the brand into legend. Then Rolls-Royce bought the company in 1931 and ceased its racing activities. A Bentley works car would not appear on the starting grid at Le Mans until the EXP Speed 8 in 2001. Despite its pivotal role in Bentley history, chassis 141 was pretty much treated as a used car after its retirement. According to the brokerage firm that arranged the $3.7 million sale, at some point a local undertaker covered the rear and used it as a wagon, perhaps for macabre cargo.

Audi spearheads development of an ultra-luxurious EV code-named Landjet

The rumors claiming Audi wants to release a model positioned above the A8, and the reports of an ongoing electric car development program called Artemis internally, have seemingly converged. Citing sources inside the carmaker, a German media outlet reported the firm is busily creating a super-luxurious EV code-named Landjet. Audi is leading the development process, but sister companies Bentley and Porsche will reportedly receive their own version of the Landjet. All three models will likely take the form of three-row SUVs with generous dimensions. They'll be so big that none of Audi's production facilities will be able to manufacture them, according to an anonymous insider who spoke with German newspaper Handelsblatt. Luckily, Volkswagen makes vans, too. It's too early to tell what will power the Landjets. Audi assigned some of its most brilliant engineers to Project Artemis, and the technology they develop will permeate the three EVs before trickling down into cheaper models in the group. Expect high performance, a high driving range, and semi-automated driving technology. If the report is accurate, the Landjet vehicles will enter production in Hanover, Germany, by the end of 2024. The facility currently makes the Volkswagen Transporter, which is a direct descendant of the rear-engined Bus sold for decades, and it will start manufacturing the production version of the ID.Buzz concept in the coming years. Volkswagen hasn't commented on the report, and car companies rarely address speculation, but its Commercial Vehicles division released a statement in November 2020 that confirms the Hanover site will begin building SUVs about halfway through the 2020s. It's a major shift for a factory normally tasked with manufacturing vans. "Our main plant in Hanover is becoming the production site for three completely new premium electric vehicles in the Group. These D-SUVs are genuine flagship projects: premium, 100% electric, and highly automated," said Carsten Intra, the head of Volkswagen's Commercial Vehicles division, in a statement. He added the firm will invest about 680 million euros (about $807 million) to build a new assembly line, among other upgrades.

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.