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Rhys Millen will drive a Bentley Bentayga at Pikes Peak

Despite Bentley positioning its Bentayga SUV as a luxury vehicle, Bentley doesn't want us to forget that it's also a storied motorsport brand. Even the Bentayga can be used for record hunting, as Bentley is eager to show. It has hired two-time Pikes Peak hill climb winner Rhys Millen to take a Bentayga to the mountaintop. With the production SUV record in its sights, Bentley's Motorsport wing in Crewe has prepared a Bentayga for the attempt (which will be used as a benchmark for the Lamborghini Urus). The vehicle has been kept as stock as possible, as per the rules, and for safety reasons it features a full roll cage, a fire suppression system, racing seats and a harness. Still, Bentley has also enlisted exhaust crafters Akrapovic to give it a custom setup; Akrapovic has also done the exhaust for the Continental GT3-R. But the air suspension with its electric anti-roll control is kept stock, and the Pirelli rubber is also off-the-shelf stuff. The W12 engine's 600hp/664 lb-ft power figures also match the unmodified versions. We reported on Bentley's inclusion at the June 24 event earlier, but at that point the driver had not yet been announced. Millen, 45, from New Zealand, is reportedly the second-most-prolific Pikes Peak competitor in the world. The current production SUV record stands at 12:35.61, set by Paul Dallenbach with a Range Rover Sport in 2013. The Pikes Peak Bentayga's exterior has been finished with an unmistakable Radium Satin hue, but other than that and the carbon fiber body kit, it appears more like an everyday, run-of-the-mill Bentayga, not a wild Pikes Peak racer with a bookcase for a rear wing. Related Video:

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.

Bentley producing Grand Convertible in grandiose exclusivity

The Googology wiki that celebrates numbers has entries for 42, 151, SpongeBob's Number, and Three Hundred Billion Gazillion. The wiki has no entry for the number 19, which means it doesn't commemorate Steely Dan's "Hey Nineteen," Paul Hardcastle's song "19," or the official production run of the Bentley Grand Convertible. That's right, the abundant and abundantly luxurious Mulsanne-based Grand Convertible will arrive on public roads in 2019. However, Bentley plans just 19 examples of the droptops, and none of them will come to America; only Europe, the Middle East, and Russia have deemed the Grand Convertible roadworthy. Retail price for the Grand Convertible, as if you could buy one in the store, is said to start at $3.5 million - roughly ten times more than the recently-facelifted Mulsanne Speed donor vehicle. ( YouTube gearhead Shmee150 captured the new production look in video taken this month at the Bentley showroom in Dubai.) Actual prices will surely run much higher since Bentley's Mulliner division will oversee the builds. That means custom two-tone colors, shape-shifting diamond quilting inside, Beluga leather, color-matched contrast stitching, and a Burr Walnut tonneau that's the largest veneer ever used on a Bentley. All of that comes before appending every fanciful option an owner consents to fund. Why the wee production run, when Bentley could certainly sell more than 19 specimens? Walter Owen Bentley founded his car company in August, 1919. Even though Walter's first Bentley 3-Litre didn't arrive until 1921, the 19 Grand Convertibles honor the centenary of the company's official founding. Bentley foreshadowed the minuscule production last year, though in a different guise: in March 2016, when Bentley CEO Wolfgang Duerheimer suggested the return of the Azure convertible, the boss said a potential Azure "would be built in [a batch of] 20 units and sold to absolute connoisseurs at a very high price." Give or take a digit, sounds like promises kept. Related Video: