Bentley not races at Le Mans, however in the course of the automaker’s adolescence it dominated the occasion, scoring 5 wins between 1924 and 1930. Two of these wins, in 1929 and 1930, have been achieved by the legendary Velocity Six because of efforts of Bentley Boys « Tim » Birkin, Glen Kidston, and Woolf Barnato. Barnato was additionally chairman of Bentley on the time.
Bentley final 12 months mentioned it deliberate to construct 12 modern examples of the Speed Six as a part of a Continuation Sequence program that kicked off late final decade with trendy examples of the 1929 Bentley Blower. In this system, Bentley builds extra variations of early vehicles, with elements that in lots of instances are created utilizing the identical strategies as again within the day.
The primary of the fashionable Velocity Six vehicles has now been accomplished, a prototype model that will probably be retained by Bentley. It was introduced for the primary time on Thursday on the 2023 Goodwood Festival of Speed. As a prototype, it is going to be used for real-world sturdiness testing, together with on the racetracks.
Manufacturing of the primary buyer automotive will start in October. Every automotive will take round 10 months to finish and all 12 are scheduled to be accomplished by the top of 2025. The group at Bentley’s Mulliner personalization division, the identical group chargeable for the earlier Blower Continuation Sequence, is chargeable for the undertaking.
1930 Bentley Velocity Six Continuation Sequence prototype
Constructing the vehicles is not a simple course of, particularly as Bentley wished to construct Velocity Sixes matching the specification of the Le Mans winners. The group relied on authentic drawings, mechanics’ notes, and 3D scanning of the unique vehicles.
Within the case of the engine alone, in extra of 600 particular person elements have been required. Preliminary dyno testing of the fashionable 6.5-liter inline-6 has proven the engine delivers 205 hp at its peak, which is inside 5 hp of what’s documented for the unique race-tuned engine.
1930 Bentley Velocity Six Continuation Sequence prototype
The pursuit of authenticity extends to the colours of the paint and inside trim, which the group matched to samples on the archives of the U.Okay.’s Nationwide Motor Museum.
In case you are questioning, all 12 construct slots for the fashionable Velocity Six are gone, regardless of a price ticket of 1.5 million euros (roughly $1.67 million).
