Bentley Showcases its Sporting Pedigree
Bentley Showcases its Sporting Pedigree
The Bentley Brooklands is a stunning new model that marks the company’s return to the luxury coupe market. It is the ultimate Bentley; a stylish, four-seater with classic British proportions and muscular performance.
Bentley Chairman Dr. Franz-Josef Paefgen describes the motivation behind the new coupe: “Bentley’s proud sporting pedigree, forged by the exploits of the immortal ‘Bentley Boys’ on the famous Brooklands racetrack in the 1920s, was the inspiration for our new coupe, capturing all the style, power and splendor of that era.”
Sporting design cues are matched by the phenomenal performance engineering of Bentley’s legendary Crewe-built V8 engine—the most powerful V8 the company has ever produced. It is a 530bhp, twin-turbocharged 6.75-litre unit that also produces a prodigious 1050Nm of torque.
Each Brooklands coupe will be hand-assembled, employing traditional coach-building techniques and the craftsmanship skills in wood veneer and leather hide for which Bentley is renowned. To ensure exclusivity, lifetime production will be strictly limited to 550 cars, with deliveries expected to start in the first half of 2008.
Bentley’s rich coupe heritage provided the stimulus for Director of Styling Dirk van Braeckel and his design team. While the new Brooklands is influenced by Bentley’s fine coupe lineage, its design and engineering are thoroughly contemporary. The proportions of long bonnet, short front overhang and long rear overhang achieve the design objective perfectly. Meanwhile, the low roofline, steeply raked screens and pillarless side glass convey both power and movement.
Since the Brooklands will be built in limited volume, the designers introduced unique features that necessitate specialist coach-building techniques. The ‘floating’ rear screen, for example, is a contemporary take on traditional coach-built Bentleys. The lower edge of the screen sits well above the upper edge of the boot lid to provide a flowing, flawless line to the back of the car. This can only be achieved by individually hand-welding the rear wings to the C-pillars.
Its four-seat architecture and deeply bolstered seats lend the Brooklands’ interior a distinctly sporting atmosphere, complemented by design accents such as aluminum foot pedals and footrest. A new, single-piece, hide-trimmed roof lining flows uninterrupted from the front windscreen all the way to the rear of the car, mirroring the long, sleek profile of the elegant exterior. Customers can choose from an extensive palette of hides, veneers, carpet tones and seat belt colors. &
For more information, visit http://www.bentleymotors.com/.
