Bentley completa el primer Blower en 90 años lasexta.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from lasexta.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
And it looks absolutely magnificent.
Bentley just completed work on its first 4½ Litre Blower in nine decades, piecing together the first example of a 12-car continuation series the British marque is working on.
Actually, it s not even the first example; technically, Bentley says, this is Car Zero - a prototype for the rest of the series, which is already pre-sold. The carmaker plans to use Car Zero as a dedicated test and development prototype, subjecting it to months of durability and performance testing to ensure that the dozen Blowers it ships to customers are of the expected quality. It sounds a bit silly, the thought of Bentley doing the same sort of development testing on a 90-year-old car as it might do on, say, a new Continental, but it makes sense given how the Blower was reborn: through reverse-engineering an original 1929 Bentley Team Car with precise laser-scanning and extensive CAD work.
autoevolution 10 Dec 2020, 0:42 UTC ·
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The limited-edition Bacalar with Continental GT underpinnings may be the most expensive Bentley in production today, but it’s not the most expensive Bentley overall. That title goes to a pre-war model known as the 4½ Litre Blower, which hammered for $6.6 million eight years ago. 19 photos
In the hands of Sir Henry Tim Birkin, chassis number HB 3402 held the Brooklands motor course record for top speed from 1931 to 1934. The legendary Bentley Boy pushed the supercharged old-timer to 137.96 miles per hour (222.03 kph), which is absolutely insane when you think about it.
Even more insane, the British automaker from Crewe went to great lengths to create a perfect reproduction of chassis number HB 3403 that was raced by Birkin in the late 1920s. The prototype that previews 12 continuation cars – lovingly called Car Zero – is the first 4½ Litre Blower produced since 1930.