2013 Bentley Continental Gt Speed Coupe 2d on 2040-cars

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Felicity Ace sinks with thousands of VWs, Porsches, Lamborghinis

The stricken ship Felicity Ace sank overnight after a week of salvage efforts ultimately proved unsuccessful. The ship, which was carrying up to 4,000 VW Group cars, went to the bottom unexpectedly while a salvage team was attempting to tow it to shore, Bloomberg reports.  "Initial reports from the local salvage team state that the vessel had sunk at around 9AM local time having suffered a list to starboard," Mitsui O.S.K. Lines transportation company (MOL), which owns the Felicity Ace, said in a statement released early Tuesday.    "The last vessel position was around 220nm off the Azores," MOL said. "The salvage crafts will remain around the area to monitor the situation. Further information will be provided as it becomes available." The ship sank after being battered by waves and listing 45 degrees to starboard, the ship’s operator said. “The weather was pretty rough out there,” Pat Adamson, a spokesperson for MOL Ship Management (Singapore), a unit of Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd., said by phone. “And then she sank, which was a surprise.” VW, Porsche, Audi, Bentley and Lamborghini-branded models were aboard the ship, which was headed to Rhode Island from GermanyÂ’s Emden port when the fire broke out on Feb. 16.  Rough seas and ongoing fires fueled by the lithium-ion batteries of EVs onboard delayed the ship's salvage and recovery operations for the better part of a week. While the likelihood of salvaging the smoke and potentially fire- and water-damaged vehicles from Felicity Ace's hold was slim to none, some had held out hope that their special-ordered vehicles might survive the mishap.  The Panama-flagged Felicity Ace was safely evacuated of its 22 crew members by the Portuguese navy after a fire started in its hold more than a week ago. The ship can carry up to 4,000 cars. European carmakers declined to discuss how many vehicles and what models were on board, but it appears to have been transporting approximately 2,500 cars, including roughly 1,100 Porsches and an undetermined number of Volkswagens.  The cars aboard were on order. Porsche customers in the United States were being contacted by their dealers, the company said. “We are already working to replace every car affected by this incident and the first new cars will be built soon,” Angus Fitton, vice president of PR at Porsche Cars North America, Inc., told The Associated Press in an email. The ship sank in water nearly 10,000 feet deep, the Portuguese Navy said.

Bentley's SUV will be first of many plug-in hybrids

Bentley is not exactly a company known for its environmental credentials. Sure, it recently cut its water usage down by over a third, and given the relatively small number of vehicles it produces, the British firm's overall impact on the environment may be negligible compared to mass-market rivals. And of course, its affluent customers are hardly likely to feel the pinch of rising fuel costs, so Bentley's idea of engine downsizing has been going from twelve cylinders to eight.
That will all change with the launch of its first SUV, previewed by the controversial EXP 9 F concept and expected to be called Falcon. To hear Auto Express tell it, the luxo-ute is being designed from the get-go to incorporate a plug-in hybrid powertrain, slated to go on sale a year after the conventional version arrives late in 2015 or early 2016. But that's just the tip of the iceberg which Bentley is trying to help keep from melting.
Following the Falcon, other Bentleys are slated to get PHEV systems as well. It'll just take a while. That's because current models like the Continental and Mulsanne were never designed to incorporate PHEV powertrain systems in the first place. So while they may get them in the long run, their integration will likely have to wait until their replacements arrive.

2015 Bentley Continental GT3-R First Drive [w/video]

Racecars break. F1, NASCAR, IndyCar, GT3 – you name it – every go-fast machine built for the track is living on borrowed time. So it wasn't a complete surprise when, after traveling halfway around the world to drive Bentley's Continental GT3 racecar, the darn thing unceremoniously blew its rear differential on someone else's hot lap. While mentally recalibrating to the idea that my only takeaway from the three day commitment might be frequent flier miles, I realized an alternate vehicle on hand could make the trip worthwhile: the roadgoing, not-so-evil twin to the all-out race machine, the 2015 Bentley Continental GT3-R. You can hardly blame Bentley for the failure to proceed. The Flying B has been performing swimmingly well in the Blancpain Endurance Series, scoring three wins in its debut season and racking up a respectable 2015 so far. The dropped, spoilered, and severely trimmed-down GT3 racer reflects a ruthless abandon of all things luxurious and civilized. Over 50 ECUs were ditched from the road car; the doors alone, which typically weigh a lofty 125 pounds apiece, have been trimmed down to a wispy 15. Yes, the race version is a fearsome, sexy beast – and yes, this was quickly proving irrelevant because that drive was simply not meant to be.The Next Best Thing It's hard to call a $339,725 exotic a consolation prize. Climbing into the roadgoing GT3-R reveals a dramatic departure from the standard issue Conti: Not only is the color scheme unexpected (acid green on black and grey), so is the choice of materials (carbon fiber, Alcantara, not an inch of wood veneer in sight). Some pesky legacy remnants remain (antiquated navigation system, some weirdly pedestrian VW-sourced buttons and switches), but there's also a smattering of sweet details (those famous organ stop air vents, the green center indicator on the steering wheel, the pleasantly gripped Alcantara shifter). In all, 300 examples are being built, 99 of which are destined for the US. Unlike the somewhat sonorous GT V8 S upon which it's based, the GT3-R's titanium exhaust enables an even more exuberant, unapologetic, voluminous roar. Those exhaust gases are summoned from the 592-horsepower, 553-pound-foot, twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V8, which gains 71 hp and 51 lb-ft over the V8 S model it's based on.