Bentley Eight Reviews

The British manufacturer has won a special Spirit of Greenpower award for its environmental performance in the recent Greenpower Corporate Challenge at Goodwood race circuit.A Bentley Motors' apprentice team designed, engineered and built the electric-powered car, which they entered in the Greenpower Challenge and F24+ racing season.The Bentley Greenpower car is the Continental DC (Direct Current) and runs off a 24-volt motor supplied by two 12-volt batteries.Designed for lightness and maximum power efficiency, the one-seater Continental DC has a carbon fibre chassis and low-resistance tyres.However, it wouldn't be a Bentley without a touch of luxury. Therefore, the interior is trimmed with alcantara and a touch-screen driver information panel is in development.Greenpower is a series of events that aim to promote greater interest in young people to follow careers in the fields of engineering and technology.The 2008 Greenpower corporate challenge was the first race of the season.Twenty-five teams entered, comprising 15 school entries and 10 company teams.The Bentley team achieved their goal of completing the four-hour race, despite some technical difficulties in the first section.The award was given in recognition of their excellent team spirit that they showed in overcoming these initial technical challenges.The F24+ season consists of eight 90-minute endurance race events that will culminate in a grand final at Goodwood in October.Race tracks on the F24+ schedule include Dunsfold, Rockingham, Croft and Aintree.The Bentley Motors team is composed of nine of the company's apprentices who are all following a three or four-year apprenticeship scheme at the factory in Crewe.Having taken the initiative themselves to compete in the Greenpower challenge the apprentices have devoted weekends and evenings for the past 10 months taking full responsibility for all aspects of the car's development.Three team members acted as drivers on race day, the rest of the team provided essential back-up support in the pits. Bentley Greenpower carMotor: 24v electric wheelchair motorPower: 240 wattTorque: 7NmTop speed: 64km/hCO2 emissions: 0g/kmSuspension: fixed carbonfibre wishbonesWheels: 1x16 carbonfibre with bespoke Michelin low-resistance tyresBatteries: 2 x 12v lead acidTransmission: continuous, one-wheel driveSteering: rack and pinionTurning: 19.2mBrakes: 160mm ventilated disc on rear wheel)Weight: 120kg 

You may know that the basis of this desirable and ostensibly English grand tourer is that of Volkswagen's Phaeton, that the engine is a development of that found in an Audi A8.You know that if you could raise the readies to get into a Bentley Continental Flying Spur, you wouldn't care the price of a cuppa Earl Grey and a crumpet about that other stuff.Before the acquisition of Jaguar by the Indian company Tata, any self-respecting English marque had to be owned by the Germans. That held true from the humblest Mini (essentially a front-wheel-drive BMW) to the grandest Roll-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe (the key working bits are Deutsch-sourced).If die-hards have a problem with that (“Crumbs, Algy, the bally Boche have taken Bentley!”) the VW group's ownership of the feted British marque was not only about the sole guarantee of its continued viability.Embracing the European Union is one thing, retaining your essence and identity is another. While Rolls succeeds beautifully in that respect, Bentley is clearly a child of its adoptive parents.The car with the English moniker is 1000 times more desirable. No one bought the Phaeton while the Audi, for all its undoubted technical excellence, is afflicted by anonymity.Breezing into the boardroom to announce the Bentley purchase is going to go over a good deal bigger than “Check out my A8,” which sounds like a battery and looks like a big electric shaver.Compared with the Continental coupe, the Flying Spur is discreet. An extra 50cm allows for two more doors, B-pillars and a real boot; it provides luxury accommodation for four adults.For 100kg more, the Spur saves $25K while maintaining parity in performance and efficiency.You couldn't want for a more welcome departure from the austere executive car class. The walnut accents, silver knobs and smoky leather are truly a mark of this marque.The way the 6.0-litre twin turbo W12 transforms the Bentley from a genteel grand tourer to a sort of volcanic eruption with all-wheel-drive has to be felt to be appreciated. Nudging the accelerator in traffic feels like taunting an active volcano to have a go.While the Spur's ability to fly is wasted in Australia, on back roads its potency is hinted at where you least expect such a heavy car to shine.The twin turbo version of the enormously potent W12 makes for one of the world's fastest sedans. Driven through excellent three mode ZF six-speed automatic transmission the Spur's reservoir of torque is there for the tapping.Using the steering wheel-mounted paddle shifter is all but redundant — though flipping the left one into too low a gear is worth it simply for the ferocious roar it prompts. While the use of weight-saving aluminium keeps the A8 to a trim two tonnes, even the Flying Spur's 2475kg don't inhibit the almost startlingly sharp manner in which it sweeps through testy bends.The Bentley's road manners are sometimes not so sweetly reminiscent of the cousin Audi — the ride can be terse at times and even torque- sensing all-wheel-drive won't entirely counter the predictable nose heavy understeer when pushing into the tightest bends.On the whole, it excels itself even in these unlikely surrounds, its reserves of grip and poise seemingly endless. If its speed through the corners wouldn't trouble a 5 Series, the Spur has no right to get through them so smartly.Steering is up to the task; light, communicative and evenly weighted although prone to abruptly registering surface irregularities.Set to sport the adaptive air suspension comes into its own through here, lowering the Spur's stance and containing body roll.In it's purpose-designed grand touring deployment, the Bentley simply eats the kilometres, washing them down with a thirst for premium unleaded that's so prodigious you'll be glad of the 80 litre tank. Progress feels almost effortless and quicker than it really is.In terms of road and wind noise it's louder than it ought to be. Add some rattling and humming over coarser stuff and you'll realise the Spur does not offer the last word in refinement.But the statement it does make is enough to drown out dissenting voices.Tally ho! The bottom lineMaybe in the next life. SnapshotBentley ContinentalPrice: $353,000 (Flying Spur)Engine: 6L/W12 twin turbo; 411kW/650NmEconomy: 17.7L/100kmPerformance: 0-100km/h: 5.2 secs (claimed) RivalsBMW 760LiPrice: $346,000Engine: 6L/V12; 327kW/600NmEconomy: 13.6L/100kmPerformance: 0-100km/h: 5.6 secs (claimed) Mercedes-Benz S600LPrice: $367,000Engine: 5.5L/V12 twin turbo; 380kW/830NmEconomy: 14.3/100kmPerformance: 0-100km/h: 4.6 secs (claimed) 

A Bentley once owned by the late disgraced stockbroker Rene Rivkin — and now by a former Gold Coast vice king — could be sold for as little as 1c under a radical new auction system.The Azure convertible was part of Rivkin's luxury car collection auctioned off as part of a fire sale before his suicide in 2005.It was snapped up for $281,000 by former Fitzgerald Inquiry figure Ron “The Pom” Kingsnorth, who in the 1980s owned one of the Gold Coast's most notorious brothels, the Geisha Bathhouse.British-born Mr Kingsnorth, once an associate of infamous London gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray, says he is “a bad boy who's gone straight” and is now out of the vice trade.Now in his 70s, he has married “a nice young Ukrainian wife,” Olga, and is involved in property development.He said he had decided to get into the “reverse auction” business as a sideline, and to raise money for charity.Unlike traditional auctions where the highest bid wins, goods sold at reverse auction are knocked down to the lowest unique bidder — the person with the lowest bid no one else has chosen.Last year, a $350,000 Broadbeach high-rise unit was sold at reverse auction for $62.92.Promoters make their money by charging a bid fee — in the case of the Bentley, $9 (or three bids for $20).The maroon convertible — which cost more than $700,000 when new and can go from 0-100km/h in six seconds — will be auctioned online for between 1 and $6000, to whoever makes the lowest unique bid.But if the auction is a success, Mr Kingsnorth stands to make hundreds of thousands of dollars.Mr Kingsnorth said he was abused as a child in East London and was donating part of the auction proceeds to the Abused Child Trust.He said that if the auction works, he plans to sell luxury homes and boats using the same method. People can bid for the Bentley online. 

Bentley, long renowned for producing luxury cars with scant regard for fuel consumption or emissions, has unveiled a plan to have all Bentleys “green” by 2012.

Europeans tore themselves away from exotic supercars to catch a close-up glimpse of the Nano, a tiny, basic and extremely cheap runabout which promises to turn the motoring world on its head.

“That is probably the most exciting thing about the Brooklands ... the fact it was almost an accidental program,” Stuart McCullough, board member for sales and marketing, said at the launch of the classic coupe in Tuscany.“When you finish major model programs, as we had with Continental and Arnage and Azure, sometimes the most difficult thing is keeping your creative designers and stylists occupied."“The idea of the Brooklands was borne out of a need to keep the designers busy; while it started purely as a styling exercise, it quickly became apparent that it was going somewhere.”Where the car went, driven by the design pen of Raul Pires and, despite best efforts of Bentley management to kill the project, was to be the latest in a long line of exclusive coupes to wear the flying B emblem.“This is a true Bentley coupe, influenced by the classic models of the past — the Blue Train from 1930, the Embericos Bentley of '39, the Continental Mulliner of 1959 and Continental T of 1997,” McCullough says. “Yet it is not a sports car; this is a true Grand Tourer.”In a world where research and development costs for a family car run into hundreds of millions of dollars (GM Holden spent more than a billion on the VE Commodore), the Brooklands program was completed on what the industry would consider pocket change.“Thirty-five million euro and even at that it was touch and go well into the program,” Peter Guest, head of department for body and trim, said.Overall, 60 per cent of what is on the Azure is on the Brooklands. The 40 per cent of the Brooklands that is unique to the coupe consists mainly of the roof and rear skin, rear underbody, suspension and damper tunes, a rework of the 6.75-litre V8 to boost power and torque, and extensive reworking of the rear seats to guarantee the most luxurious and spacious rear accommodation of any coupe.With a production run of only 550 spread over three years — a number predicated by how many cars the company can squeeze down an already full-capacity production line at Crewe — the opportunity to truly hand-build the cars in the traditional sense was too good to pass up.Each Brooklands is unique. Every one of the 500 orders taken so far — including six from Australia — will include a degree of Mulliner personalisation, whether something as simple as a special colour match or as complex as an interior trimmed in wood from a specific tree.Even before the bespoke Mulliner division gets involved, the Bentley Coupe is something special.Each car takes 600 hours to complete — an outrageous figure in a world where cost efficiency has seen other high-end makers popping cars off the line with increasing regularity.It takes a month for the wood trim for each car to be prepared and cured, with the 10sqm of chosen veneer set on a solid wood substrata. There are 6000 hand-done spot welds on each body. Fifteen metres of copper-braised seams are hand-ground to be invisible under the paint.Over 125 hours, the 16 hides in each full-leather interior are hand-stitched using 484.5m of thread and 43,507 stitches.Under the bonnet, the 6.75-litre V8 is Bentley in microcosm. With the core of the thumping great benteight approaching its 50th birthday, there is enormous pride in having a component that has been engineered to last. “We believe it may be the longest-serving engine in the industry,” says Bentley's powertrain main man, Brian Gush.The original 6.25-litre engine debuted in 1959 and, by 1962, had been bored to its current 6.75 litres. Since the original “sufficient” output (about 230bhp/160kW is as near as anyone will say) the engine has been tweaked, blown and modernised so that the current one claims 395kW (530bhp) and 1050Nm — something the firm is no longer shy about promoting.Yet, while power has soared, Gush is at pains to point out that NOx emissions are down by 99 per cent and efficiency is up 60 per cent over the original engine.On the road, the Brooklands delivers most of the things you expect from a Bentley — and more than a couple you don't.The interior is plush and lush — it could hardly be anything less given the time and materials lavished on it. Craftsmanship and old-world style dominate. Polished pull-knobs and switch gear punctuate the wooden dash treatment, the dials are creamy, rich and prominent, and the knurling on the gear shifter is a work of art.The first impression of the front of the cabin is that the floor is high — it is because of the straight chassis rails running beneath — and the seating fairly high.The seats themselves are large and comfortable but not particularly well bolstered — not an issue, you may reasonably think, in a luxury grand tourer. Not so, given the performance capability of this car.Rear seat space — in any limousine let alone a coupe — is expansive. The two rear seats are electronically adjustable, with leg and headroom difficult to fault. Entry and exit is not simple, even with the large front doors, as the low roofline demands a degree of dexterity.Punch the starter button and such issues fade into insignificance. The big V8 fires up quietly — unbelievably quietly for an engine of its size — but that can all change in an instant.Jumping on the accelerator is akin to poking a sleeping bear with a sharp stick. Instantly, there is a fierce rumbling and a sense of life, followed almost instantly by a ferocious release of energy.With the twin turbos forcing the engine to take deep breaths, the Bentley throws its 2.7 tonnes down the road at an alarming rate.A 5.3 second 0-100km/h sprint may not make a Porsche driver wince but from inside a behemoth like the Brooklands it is breathtaking.Yet, the car is far more than a rocket sled. There is an impressive stiffness to the chassis and a comforting degree of feedback from the huge bespoke 255/40 ZR 20-inch rubber developed for the Brooklands by Pirelli.The big car turns in progressively and tracks truly with a mechanical grip that beggars description. A dynamic stability program is standard on the car but, during the launch drive on winding Italian mountain roads, provoking it into action took more aggression than we were prepared to apply.The standard brake package is impressive enough — 348mm ventilated discs front and 345mm rear — but for the cost of a mid-sized family car ($25,000 or so) you can upgrade to monstrous 420mm carbon/silicon carbide cross-drilled discs on the front with eight-pot calipers. The rears are a not-inconsiderable 356mm with both front and rear discs guaranteed for the life of the car. 10 things you won't get in a commodore1 Almost 2.7 tonnes of hand-built bespoke metal2 A 6.75-litre twin turbo V8 hand-built and signed by the team leader3 Torque of 1050Nm to go with the 395kW of plush power4 103.5 billion standard colour and trim combinations5 A full leather interior hand-sewn using the hides of 16 cows6 Hand-polished stainless steel exterior brightwork7 The option to upgrade to 8-pot, 420mm carbon ceramic brakes that will stop an ocean liner for a trifling $25,000.8 No reach adjustment on the steering wheel9 Combined cycle fuel consumption of 19.5L/100km or an urban average of 28.8L/100km10 A sticker price of $693,000 plus on-road costs 

You can have them all for a fraction of the price.P1 is a multi-million dollar version of a car-rental company but you need to be quick if you want to be a part of the action.Less than a year after launching its Melbourne office, memberships in the exclusive and expensive rental company are running out.More than 135 Australians have signed up and the company will limit its membership to 200 to make sure there are enough cars to go around.“We'll never go above 200 members,” says James Ward, general manager of P1 in Victoria, “basically to maintain a ratio of five new members for each new car.”Though only 29 vehicles are spread across the company's three Australian locations — in Richmond, Sydney and the Gold Coast — the quality of the cars and motorbikes has seen the company lay out $29 million on equipment.Set up by former Formula One world champion Damon Hill in 2000 in Britain, the club came to Australia in December 2006. The Richmond branch opened last March.Members can join for $4550 and pay annual charges ranging from $27,000 to $36,500 to have access to a dream garage.P1's roster includes three examples of the Lamborghini Gallardo, a Lamborghini Murcielago, Ferrari 430, Ferrari 575M, Aston Martin DB9, Bentley GT Continental, Porsche 997 GT3, Porsche Cayman S, Audi RS4 Avant, Lotus Exige, Hummer H2, and a Ducati 1098 and BMW K1200 for bikers.Packages give customers a bank of points to use through the year.As is befitting the cost, the company offers a range of services. They drop off the cars anywhere they are required and can store and wash the customer's personal car.“It's as much about the car as it is about the service,” Ward says . “It's whatever suits our customers.” 

Only 550 of the Brooklands model Bentleys are available worldwide."They are tailor-made to the exact specifications of each customer,” said Sue Young, the spokeswoman for Queensland Bentley.Ms Young said the Brisbane buyer wanted to remain anonymous, as did two other Queenslanders who have expressed an interest in getting one of the luxury coupes.She said all three currently own a Bentley Arnage T, worth about $545,000.Maserati's latest GranTurismo will be seen in Australia for the first time at the show, which opens at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre at noon on 1, February 2008.The sports car's appeal seems to have outweighed its $293,000 price tag, because 150 Australian orders have already been taken for the new model, including 20 from Queensland, according the company's Australian general manager, Edward Butler.No other Maserati has sold as quickly and the waiting list for the 2008 GranTurismo is greater than the firm's Australian and New Zealand sales last year, Mr Butler said.Luxury-car sellers say their models have become increasingly popular with younger professionals."The 20 to 35-year age group is taking a much bigger slice of the market share,” said Audi Centre Brisbane dealer principal Greg Willims. “There is no doubt the prosperity in Queensland is growing.”Adam O'Brien, of Brisbane Prestige Cars in Fortitude Valley, said manufacturers were working harder to attract young customers in a bid to keep them for life.Danny Singh, 31, of Brendale in Brisbane's northwest, recently bought a luxury H3 Hummer from Brisbane Prestige Cars for $70,000 then spent a further $15,000 on modifications.Also making their Australian debuts at the show will be new-look versions of cult street machines the Subaru WRX STi, the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution — known as the Evo X to fans because it is the 10th in the series.Both are expected to be in the $60,000 bracket.Australia will be represented in the go-fast stakes by a Ford Performance Vehicles version of the Territory SUV, the yet-to-be-released F6 X all-wheel-drive wagon.Brisbane International Motor Show, Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, South Bank, runs from Friday to February 10; Monday to Saturday, 10am-10pm; Sunday, 10am-6pm. Adults $17.50, children $10.

About 20 car enthusiasts have already done just that.

Speed is good for Bentley. It was very good in the 1920s, when a Speed badge signalled everything special about the British brand's sportiest models.