Filed under: Sports/GTs, Etc., Supercars, Bentley, Chevrolet, Lamborghini, Maybach, Porsche, Ferrari, Driving 
Click image above for high-res gallery by the author and guest photog Jason Thorgalsen
There are several Cannonball Run-type rallies that take place around the country (around the world in some cases). Fast cars breaking the sound barrier as they hustle from coast-to-coast in search of fame and glory. Well, that's how some of them started, at any rate. Nowadays the rallies tend to be a bunch of rich folks with exotic cars touring the States with a smattering of track sessions here and there to really test the cars and drivers. Luxury hotels and VIP parties mark the nights and moderately fast (in theory) highway cruises mark the days. One of these new age rallies just kicked off on its maiden run f rom the Santa Monica Pier over the weekend. And it was quite a celebration.
The cars are familiar, some of the faces too, but this rally has a slight twist. Billed as a sort of exotic car vacation run, the Joy Ride Rally has a deeper purpose. Part of the entry fee from each driver goes to support the Salvation Army's Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund. The rallyists will follow a route through the Southwest and end up in New Orleans in about a week, to view some of the damaged areas first hand. We were on hand for the launch from the Santa Monica Pier and tagged along for a bit to get some shots. The police escort was a nice touch, but we had to explain to every single officer that we were indeed part of the entourage despite our lack of a supercar. The cars gathered on the classic wooden pier with a big crowd enjoying the free show.
Follow the jump for the rest of the story, plus video of the departure courtesy Duane Steiner at SoCalSpeedZone!
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Filed under: Car Buying, Bentley 
Click the image above to view our 47-image Brooklands gallery
If you have at least $330,000 to spend on your next new car, and you've got an eye on the new Bentley Brooklands, you'd better get your order in before they're all gone. The first 140 are already spoken for, which equates to the first year of production. Any new orders will have to wait two years before the order is filled.
Production of the 530hp ultraluxury vehicle will only hit 550 units during its three-year run, and the Brooklands will most certainly meet t hat quota. Bentley marketing director Stuart McCullough told BusinessWeek that the incredibly low production volume of the Brooklands is due in part to the hundreds of different options available for the mega-coupe. It should also be noted that the painstaking task of creating the car itself is time-consuming, yet another reason the overall production run will be a low number. Remember that each Brooklands begins life as one of Bentley's Azure convertibles, to which the hard roof is then hand-welded. In any case, the amazing degree to which the cars can be personalized (most Bentleys roll out of the factory with around $30,000 - $50,000 of customization...some with much, much more) will likely ensure that no two Brooklands will ever be alike. We're not experts, but we get the feeling these 550 Bentleys will probably never depreciate much, unless, of course, Eddie Griffin takes the wheel...
[Source: BusinessWeek via coolbrit.net ] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Filed under: New York Auto Show, Sports/GTs, Supercars, Aston Martin, Audi, Bentley, Chevrolet, Lamborghini, Lotus, Mercedes Benz, Ferrari 
Click on the Gallardo SuperLegerra for a high-res gallery of exotics at the NY Auto Show
One of the highlights of any auto show are the cars that mos t people rarely get to see on the road in real life, unless you happen to live someplace like Newport Beach or Monte Carlo. Even when you've seen them before, it never hurts to show them again. For your vehicular edification we present the exotic highlights of the New York Auto Show!
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Filed under: Car Buying, Sports/GTs, Supercars, Aston Martin, Bentley, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Driving 
The East Coast premium rental car company, Gotham Dream Cars, has just launched its own "Exotic Car Club" program called DreamShare. The program is offered through the firm's NY and Miami locations, and offers drivers a chance to sample supercars and exotics without the hassles of ownership like depreciation, storage concerns, maintenance costs and the like. And really, for $300-$450 a day, who wouldn't love to have a Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin or Bentley available for a weekend trip to the Vineyard? Feeling a bit more patriotic? You can choose the Ford GT or Corvette Z06 then.
Like other programs of its type, members pay a membership fee and get a certain num ber of points they can use to rent vehicles in the rotation. They'll even deliver the car to you. DreamShare has three tiers of service: Platinum, Titanium and Elite. Each gives you more days of rentals (20, 45, 90 days) for a higher price tag ($9,000, $18,000, $27,000). It's actually quite reasonable when you break it down, especially for cars of this level. The current active fleet consists of a pair of Aston Martin Vanquishes, a brace of Murcielagos, a couple of Gallardo Spyders, a 360 Spider duo, an F430, Bentley GTC, Ford GT, and Chevy Corvette Z06, among others. The cars generally move to NY in Summer and Florida in Winter, but they promise cars in each city year-round. More details about the plans and Gotham's regular rental program are available by following the read link. Sadly we didn't see a gift registry anywhere on the site.
[Source: Gotham Dream Cars ] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Filed under: Etc., Videos, Bentley 
 Most carmakers usually head somewhere warm like Nardo in Italy or the Bonneville Salt Flats to explore the upper reaches of their vehicles performance potential. Bentley went the other way recently when a Continental GT went to Oulu, Finland. Running on frozen sea ice (how much longer will be able to say that?), four-time World Rally Champion Juha Kankkunen achieved a two way average of 199.86 mph over a flying kilometer.
Kankk unen was driving his own personal Continental on the six-mile course across ice that was only 28 inches thick. His maximum speed on the record run was 205 mph. A roll cage and some snow tires with wicked spikes, along with aerodynamic tweaks like flush wheel and headlight covers, were the only significant mechanical changes. The engine calibrations were also adjusted to work with some non-standard fuel that was used to cope better with the minus 30C temperatures.
The press rele ase along with a video showing the car making its record runs is after the jump.
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Filed under: Spy Photos, Convertibles, Coupes, Sedans/Saloons, Sports/GTs, Bentley  We just brought you news of the upcoming facelift for the Bentley Continental GT yesterday, and already spy shots have surfaced showing a couple of cold-weather test mules sitting at the pumps. (Those six-liter W12s can drink a lot of fossils.)
As predicted, the updates will extend across the Continental range, which we can see from the facelifted Continental Flying Spur sitting in front of the revised Continental GT. We can expect changes to the exterior to be minor: the spy shots show a front bumper with a widened center air intake, but little done to mitigate the burnt-off-eyebrow look. The easiest thing to change on a facelifted car is always the wheels, but these test mules seem to be wearing the same rims as the models they'll replace. Reported modifications to the interior should be nice, though, as Bentley cabins rank among the nicest places in the worldto be. Click through to our friends at WCF to get a better look at the spy shots. [Source: World Car Fans ] Related post:
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Filed under: Coupes, Sports/GTs, Bentley 
The Bentley Boys aren't sitting around, resting on their plush leather laurels. Having just released the new Brooklands land-yacht coupe, it's on to the next project at Crewe, with the hot-selling Continental GT receiving a planned update..
The successful W12-powered coupe is scheduled for a complete overhaul in early 2010, but to hold sales strong until then, Bentley is planning to release a facelifted version of the current model by the end of this year. The updated Conti will get a few extra horses out of it's 6-liter W12 engine, bringing output up to 560hp, as well as some cosmetic changes to keep it looking fresh, including a revised front fascia and some new rims. Although the surfacing reports say the facelift is due for the Continental GT coupe, we can expect the new features to carry over to its siblings, the already sold-out GTC cabrio and the Flying Spur sedan. Which, of course, means all those Fort Lauderdale yachtsmen, Hollywood movie stars and British footballers will have to be trading up. [Source: AutoTelegraaf via Motor Authority ] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Filed under: Geneva Motor Show, Green, Bentley
UDDATE: Bentley saw our title for this post, and was very confused. Apparently a mistranslation of Franz Josef Paefgen's interview led us down the wrong path. After speaking with Bentley directly, it is clear that the automaker has entered an early planning stage for its long term strategy in which many options are being considered for the brand, including potential diesel and hybrid powertrains. However, there are currently no firm plans to use such powertrains next year, or in the immediate future.
As AutoblogGreen so eloquently points out, Bentley isn't often mentioned in green car culture unless one is talking about the most polluting vehicles on the planet (the Bentley Arnage ranks third on the list). That may change as soon as next year. According to the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Bentley CEO Franz Josef Paefgen revealed at the recent Geneva Motor Show that the automaker may begin installing diesel and even hybrid engines in its models as early as next year. According to the translation provided by AutoblogGreen, the move is meant to transform the company's image, which is odd since Bentley has an image as solid as gold, why change it? Nevertheless, we could definitely get behind a big honkin' diesel motor beneath a Bentley bonnet. Hmmm... sibling VW Group member Audi has a reall y nice V12 TDI that's about to go racing at Sebring next weekend in its R10 ALMS racer. As for a hybrid, we think they're getting done to death a bit, especially when a well-engineered diesel will provide better mileage on the highway with a bunch of grunt off the line. We have a request in to Bentley for a comment on these relevations, which we'll relay to you when it comes back to us. Meanwhile, you can click the Read link to check out AutoblogGreen's translation of the original German article.
[Source: AutoblogGreen via German Car Blog ] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Filed under: Coupes, Geneva Motor Show, Bentley 
Click on the image above to view our 47-image high-resolution gallery
It's been several years since the boys at Bentley had a full-size - and we mean full-size - luxury coupe to top off its range of traditional offerings to the well-heeled, and with the official unveiling of the new Bentley Brooklands they've done it in grand style. Superseding the Continental line of coupe, cabrio and sedan, the Brooklands joins the Arnage and Azure to round out Bentley's most exclusive product range. We were the first to bring you a gallery of images as they hit the net, but it's hard to get your head around just how big this behemoth really is without witnessing the hand-crafted two-door limousine in person. Suffice it to say that it's fitting they named the Brooklands after a tract of land: it's large enough to be classified as a territory unto itself, and with 775 lb-ft of torque it's got enough grunt to uproot anything on it. You'll find the press release after the jump, and our updated high-resolution image gallery below, complete with live shots from Geneva. %Gallery-1907% Continue reading Geneva Motor Show: Bentley Brooklands bows Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Filed under: Coupes, Sports/GTs, Geneva Motor Show, Euro, Bentley 
click above image to view 23 high-res images of the new Bentley Brooklands coupe
Bentley describes its new Brooklands coupe that's being unveiled right now in Geneva as a "grand touring coupe with classic British proportions." Yes, it certainly has classic British proportions if by that Bentley means it's as big as Britain itself. The new 2+2 coupe by the boys and girls from Crewe is named after the famed Brooklands banked race track in Surrey, England where Bentley made a name for itself in motorsports during the 1920s.
The Brookland's got a classic Bentley face, a modern profile (check out the fender vents!) with B-pillarless side glass and massive 20-inch wheels that shine with a mirror finish. The interior features typical Bentley craftsmanship, which means by-hand construction of the leather-lined surfaces and symmetrical wood trim. The rear passengers benefit from limo-like legroom and power adjustable cushions, as well. A prodigious amount of power is provided by Bentley's all-aluminum 6.75L turbocharged V8 with revised cams and a lower inertia turbo that helps push power to an even 500bhp and around 775 ft-lbs. of earth-wrinkling torque. Needless to say, 60 mph will come and go faster than your fat wallet. Only 505 Brooklands will be made by Bentley, making it one exclusive land yacht for the ridiculously wealthy. Deliveries are scheduled to start in the first half of 2008 for the sheiks, musicians and tech company moguls who will no doubt plunk down a deposit.
We've got plenty more shots of the Bentley Brook lands in our high-resolution gallery. We'll bring you live shots and the official press release as soon as we get our grubby hands on them.
[Source: Bentley ]
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