(Un)Delete Option: Bentley Continental Supersports options list to include rear seat?

We’ve come to expect the ultimate in customization from Bentley. If you’ve got the scratch, the company will be more than happy to custom tailor its products to fit your tastes – right down to the color of your car’s seat belts. It should come as no surprise, then, that the company is now allowing potential ContinentalSupersports Coupe buyers to order their cars with a back seat.

One of the coolest parts of the 612-horsepower coupe is the fact that, for its part, Bentley tried to trim the car’s fat. Weight got ditched wherever possible, including the cabin. Those hefty, infinitely adjustable, heated, cooled and massaging front buckets were swapped for lightweight carbon fiber-backed units, and the two rear seats were scrapped all together. In their place? Asexy piece of carbon-fiber bracing. We like.

But evidently, Bentley buyers would prefer their two-door to have more seats. To help boost Continental Supersports Coupe sales, the company has decided to offer the back thrones as a stand alone option. Checking the box will put the standard front seats in, ditch the rear bracing and re-install the rears. There’s no word on exactly how many pounds that will add to the car’s waist line, but it can’t do the coupe any favors. Boo to this.

Posts Related to (Un)Delete Option: Bentley Continental Supersports options list to include rear seat?

• Maserati Coupe Review

  2006 Maserati Coupe Cambiocorsa 2dr Coupe   Practical Exotic Car The most affordableMaserati has a tight but useable backseat and trunk to complement sexy ...

• 2009 Audi A5

  Audi has been making a concerted effort in recent years to broaden its product line. One of its newest products are medium-sized A5 Coupe. Inspired ...

• Infiniti G37 Review

  When Infiniti's first G35 coupe stormed onto the scene in 2002, it proved a worthy alternative to BMW's 3 Series — the best you could ...

• Infiniti G35 Review

  2008 Infiniti G35 Sport Sedan Shown These days, we've come to expect a lot from Infiniti. But in years past, the Japanese luxury brand actually ...

• NY Show: Five-Axis Beefs Up 2011 Scion tC Coupe

  For those that found the second-generation Scion tC far too timid-looking, Toyota’s tuning partner Five-Axis prepared a special version of the car to demonstrate the many ...

Read More

Bentley Launches Mulliner Styling Pack for Continental GT

Bentley’s new Continental GT is, without question, a coupe with imposing road presence. But the British firm wishes to offer its customers the opportunity to make their cars even more unique by launching a range of styling options named Mulliner Styling Specification Classic Pack.This styling package consists of a front splitter, strakes integrated in the front intake grilles, sideextension blades and a rear diffuser, all made from glossy black carbon-fibre.

If you think these are not enough, Bentley also offers more options such as a carbon-fibre rear spoiler and mirror covers, as well as dark mesh front wing vents and black 21-inch 7-spoke alloy wheels.

According to Bentley’s head of exterior design, Raul Pires, the Mulliner Styling SpecificationClassic Pack “with its sharper lines and darker, lower appearance underlines the iconic form of Bentley’s new GT, underscores its extrovert, flamboyant nature and delivers a more personalized, sportive interpretation of a luxurious and refined GT”.

The Classic Pack is already available to order, while the optional features will be available from the following autumn.

PHOTO GALLERY

Posts Related to Bentley Launches Mulliner Styling Pack for Continental GT

• Maserati Coupe Review

  2006 Maserati Coupe Cambiocorsa 2dr Coupe   Practical Exotic Car The most affordableMaserati has a tight but useable backseat and trunk to complement sexy ...

• Irmscher Refines the New Opel Astra Sport Tourer

  Having already presented several proposals for the five-door hatchback version of the new Opel Astra, Irmscher has now turned its tuning focus on the Sport ...

• New Transformers Movie Spawns 2012 Chevy Camaro Special Edition

  General Motors is trying to squeeze every ounce of publicity out its association with the makers of the third Transformers movie, called Dark of the ...

• New Exclusive and M Sport Editions Join BMW 3-Series Coupe and Convertible Range

  You didn’t think BMW would leave its bread-and-butter 3-Series untouched for the new model year just because it’s actively working on a replacement, did you? ...

• 2009 Audi R8

  The most high-performance road going Audi ever. If there were any questions about what the Audi R8 is, it is the answer. Designed to give ...

Read More

Bentley Defies Crisis with a 20% Increase in Global Sales

Crisis? What crisis? For you and me, perhaps, but not for Bentley buyers. The VW-owned Britishluxury carmaker announced today a 20% increase in global sales for the first half of 2011 with 2,978 cars delivered to customers, the best start for the company since 2008.
The luxury marque attributes this surge in sales to the high demand for the new Continental GT as well as the increasing popularity in (least we forget, communist…) China, where Bentley sales have risen by 57% compared to the same period last year, to 680 cars. Thus, it has become the manufacturer’s second best market, behind only the US (George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, anyone?).

Not to be outdone by China, the capitalist West has contributed its fair, albeit smaller, share toBentley’s rise. In Europe, sales have increased by 25% (494 cars) and in the USA by 23% (907 cars). Only in Japan, due to the recent catastrophic natural disasters, and the Middle East, wherepolitical unrest rules, have sales declined.

So, well done Bentley – and well done to all the fat cats out there, be they…capitalists or…communists, who are rapidly increasing in numbers each day.

PHOTO GALLERY

Posts Related to Bentley Defies Crisis with a 20% Increase in Global Sales

• VW Posts 35% Jump in U.S. Sales in June, Jetta Demand up 121%

  The Volkswagen brand has reported U.S. sales of 28,444 units in June 2011 recording a 35.1 percent increase over the same month a year ago. ...

• Chrysler Seeks Fiat Synergies to Produce Cars in China

  China is the world’s largest car market: last year alone, more than 18 million vehicles were sold there, of which 13.76 million were passenger cars. ...

• Ford beats GM in March sales

  General Motors posted its seventh consecutive sales gain for the month of March, with 206,621 total sales. A good month, no doubt, but Ford had a ...

• Volvo boosting XC60 production, ponders bringing China-built cars to U.S.

  New Volvo CEO Stefan Jacoby has stated publicly that the Swedish automaker plans to double global sales to 800,000 units per year by 2020. That’s a ...

• New Bentley Mulsane Limousine Priced from £220,000 in the UK, Sales Start Next Summer

  Bentley’s new flagship limousine, the Mulsanne, will arrive in the United Kingdom in the Summer of 2010 with a starting price of £220,000 (including taxes ...

Read More

Bentley won’t offer diesel engines

While more and more automakers have announced plans to offer diesel engines for their models, Bentley has done the complete opposite by saying that diesel is not something they would offer in the future. Charman and CEO Franz-Josef Paefgen has said that Bentley had found diesel engines impressive, but the company is now saying that with adverse market conditions, like the ones we’re experiencing, the move to diesel is unlikely.

“The forthcoming Euro 6 clean-air regs are likely to pile some big costs on to diesels,” says Bentley powertrain boss Brian Gush. And there’s a strong prejudice against them in the US and Japan, which are key markets for us. The attitude of Chinese buyers is going to have a big effect on cars like ours in future, too, and they are none too keen. Those of us who know diesels can see the benefits, but in large parts of the world the cars just wouldn’t sell.”

Next to the familiar 6.0-liter W12 engine, as found in their Continental GT, Bentley will also offer a 4.0 liter V8 engine, but that was the only detail they let out.

Read More

Bentley Arnage recalled due to rusty hood ornament

It’s not very common for Bentley to find something wrong with its cars, especially after all that fine-tooth combing and engineering. Bentley has issued a recall though for all of its Bentley Arnage range, including the Arnage T, Arnage R, Arnage RL, Arnage Final Series, Azure and Brooklands, made between October 2006 and March 2009.

The recall was issued because of a corrosion issue with the ‘Flying B’ hood ornament that pokes up through the front tip of the car. Rust, of all concerns, is blamed for a possible lack of operation of the retracting Flying B mechanism which could become stuck. Doesn’t sound like much of a problem, unless you’re a pedestrian.

Bentley cars are fitted with a safety device which suddenly retracts the hood ornament in the event of the front end being struck by an object. The pointy ornament is swiftly sucked down into the bodywork, thus removing the chance of unlucky pedestrians becoming tangled and receiving nasty damage.

Bentley says owners of the affected cars will receive a letter advising them to take their cars into the nearest Bentley dealer to have the ornament replaced with a newer, rust-free version free of charge.

Read More

Bentley Continental GT gets toasted in Russia

We’ve just about had enough of burning supercars recently with all those burning Ferrari 458 Italias having traumatized us already. But unfortunately, the reality of it all is that we’re still going to see them whether we like it or not with this Bentley Continental GT serving proof that exotics aren’t exempt from freak accidents like this.

In this particular case, the burning Continental GT, which happened in Irkutsk, Eastern Siberia, may have come as a result of a pre-meditated attack and not some sort of accident. Details are sketchy, but from what we’ve heard, it looks like arson may have been the cause with two probably scenarios: either somebody didn’t want the car anymore – and decided to burn it – or people got upset at the owner for parking the car in three separate parking spots.

Whatever the case may be, it doesn’t take away the grim reality that another exotic – a beautiful one at that – has now been toasted to a crisp, and hundreds of thousands of dollars have burned with it.

Read More