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2018 Bentley Continental Supersports | More exciting than space travel

For the final song on their delightfully buoyant and mordant 1996 album This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About, Pacific Northwest indie rock band Modest Mouse penned an even more cynical response to David Bowie's already nihilistic ode to interstellar flight, "Space Oddity" The song imagines the life of a lonely female passenger on a flight to some distant lunar satellite, lost in post-gravitational anomie ("She's the only rocketeer in the whole damn place/They gave her a mirror so she could talk to her face.") Dreading the endless blankness of her voyage as much as the senseless achievement of reaching its destination, the unnamed woman wishes she could just read a dime-store novel and return home. It is titled, poignantly, " Space Travel is Boring." We recently visited the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, NASA's literal launch pad for the Apollo missions and the Space Shuttle. Since there are currently no rockets going up, Space Florida's Shuttle Landing Facility did us the favor and allowed us to use the 3.5-mile-long runway built for the Shuttle — literally, the longest stretch of underutilized, perfectly straight, perfectly paved roadway in the world — for a series of automotive maneuvers. Our vehicle of choice was the $293,300 2018 Bentley Continental Supersports. This was decidedly not boring. The Supersports is an enhanced version of an already extremely potent vehicle. Featuring an upgraded crankshaft, torque converter, and turbochargers for more power and improved power delivery, the Supersports' 6.0-liter W12 engine produces an even 700 horsepower, and 750 lb-ft of torque. That makes this the most powerful and fastest Bentley ever made. Sixty miles per hour is dispatched in 3.4 seconds on the way to a maximum velocity of 209 mph. The largest carbon ceramic brakes of any production car come as standard equipment, as do carbon fiber hood vents, front splitter and rear air diffuser, side trim, and a planed long-board of a rear wing. Handsome 21-inch lightweight forged wheels are also part of the package, though, really, weight savings is almost irrelevant in this vehicle. The Supersports weighs over 2.5 tons, or about as much as one of the tread belt shoes on the diesel/electric crawler used to tug the 70-million-pound Space Shuttle and its boosters out onto Canaveral's runway. We were tugged out onto the runway as well, though in a slightly different fashion.

Bentley recalls nearly 2,000 examples of the Bentayga over fire risk

Bentley is voluntarily recalling 1,892 examples of the Bentayga in America to replace a fuel line that could leak and cause a fire. The affected SUVs were manufactured between July 26, 2018, and January 15, 2020. Documents submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) explain the SUVs included in the recall are fitted with a quick fuel line connector that can leak if it's exposed to extremely high temperatures in the engine bay. Fuel and heat don't go together well, unless they meet in a cylinder, so the leak could start a fire. Bentley noted motorists might smell fuel in the engine bay if the connector leaks, but Autoblog learned from a company spokesperson that it's not aware of accidents, injuries, or even damage related to the problem. The spokesperson stressed the recall only applies to the Bentayga V8; it doesn't include the W12 model or the plug-in hybrid. Only about 0.2% of the SUVs being recalled have this defect, according to the firm. Bentley explained it noticed the problem in 2018, when a customer complained the SUV smelled like gasoline. Technicians identified the cause of the problem as material softening due to elevated temperatures in the engine bay, and engineers began working on a fix and testing it in real-world conditions. The redesigned part notably faces away from the hot side of the engine, according to a recall bulletin published by the NHTSA. Owners of affected cars will be notified in the coming weeks, and they'll need to bring their Bentayga to the nearest dealer to have the fuel line and its quick connector replaced. It's a job that takes approximately one hour. The average Bentley customer owns eight cars, so at least Bentayga owners won't be stuck using Uber. Featured Gallery 2019 Bentley Bentayga V8: First Drive View 34 Photos Recalls Bentley SUV Luxury

Bentley Bentayga bodies to be built in Bratislava

Volkswagen's plant in Bratislava, Slovakia, has come a long way. After getting its start in 1971 by subcontracting the production of Skoda-branded vehicles, the plant was purchased by VW in 1991, where it was quickly put to further good use as it began producing Volkswagen Passat models for export. More recently, Bratislava has become a bastion for SUVs, assembling the Audi Q7 and Porsche Cayenne, in addition to the VW Touareg. Color us unsurprised, then, to learn that the Bentley Bentayga, which will be built atop the same large SUV platform as its cousins from Audi, Porsche and VW, will also be used for at least part of the production of Bentley's first SUV. Surely, though, one of the hallmarks of the Bentley brand is that its cars are handmade in England. Won't the Bentley-buying populace feel slighted by production in Slovakia? Not to worry. As is the case with the Porsche Cayenne, all that will be produced in Slovakia is the Bentayga's body. According to a report from Automotive News, bodies for the Bentayga will be shipped from Bratislava to Crewe, England, where they will be finished into fully operational vehicles. In order to accommodate the additional work, VW will reportedly invest 500 million euros into the plant in Slovakia and hire hundreds of workers.