2001 Bentley Azure Turbo 6.8l V8 16v Automatic Rwd Convertible Premium on 2040-cars

Auto blog

New Bentley boss nixes any new sports cars in its money-losing lineup

Adrian Hallmark took over the helm at Bentley on February 1 this year. Volkswagen poached him from Jaguar, where he headed the brand's global strategy. Or perhaps we should say re-poached him, since Hallmark served as Bentley's board member in charge of sales and marketing from 1999 to 2005, and helped guide the original Continental GT to market. He's now responsible getting Bentley in better shape financially and sales-wise, and positioning it for growth. Among the products necessary to do that, Hallmark recently told Autocar that flashy coupes won't cut it. "I'll tell you what we won't be building," he said, "and that's sports cars." That means we can forget about the gorgeous EXP 10 Speed 6 coupe that had a rumored place in the lineup after a sub-Bentayga CUV, and the EXP 12 Speed 6e battery-electric convertible. Hallmark cited a few issues with the segment, the first being that the segment hasn't yet recovered from the recession, and the buyer demographic that's left goes up in age every year, clearly a losing game. The kinds of younger buyers who would buy Bentleys, athletes and entertainers, are deterred from the purchase by contractual limitations like injury clauses or aversion to paparazzi photos. As well, in China, wealthy buyers get SUVs or limousines, but Hallmark believes Bentley hasn't adopted the the proper strategy there to take advantage. This is far more than about sports cars for Bentley, though; a recent article in German newspaper Handelsblatt outlined a number of situations the carmaker needs to rectify, including the finding that Bentley's "losing money hand over fist instead of racking up the hefty margins more typical of the class." A German study claimed that whereas Ferrari makes around $80,000 on every car it sells, and Porsche makes a little more than $19,000 on each car (last year it was a little more than $17,000) Bentley loses a little more than $19,000 on each unit. The English manufacturer has posted an operating loss of roughly $92 million through the first six months of 2018, the latest figures in a decline that began in 2014. That financial timeline, however, coincides with Bentley's $1.1B investment in new technologies, which the carmaker cites as the reason for profitability woes.

Bentley Continental GT takes off with Breitling Jet Team

Of all the automakers that have co-branding deals in place with watchmakers, the relationship between Breitling and Bentley ranks among the longest-standing. But aviation aficionados will also point out that Breitling – ever the favorite of pilots – also supports a team of aerobatic pilots called the Breitling Jet Team. Now the three have come together to create a special run of luxury automobiles. The Bentley Continental GT Speed Breitling Jet Team Series, as you might have guessed, is based on the Continental GT Speed that stands as the fastest model Bentley has ever offered. Which is a good starting point, because despite the "jet" part of the name, they have not actually put a turbine engine under the hood. Jaguar (among others) has tried that, and it has yet to work out. What sets apart this special series is entirely cosmetic, carried out by Bentley's Mulliner customization department. It has a two-tone paint job of Hallmark and Onyx (which may look purplish in the pictures but the scheme is listed as silver and black in the Bentley catalog), matching the livery on the jets themselves. It's accented with Breitling's signature yellow. The color scheme continues inside, with carbon-fiber trim, more yellow accents, and little thematic Easter eggs throughout. Whether the result looks like a promotional vehicle or a sleek take on the vehicle of choice for every entrepreneur who strikes it big, that's a matter of taste. And if you want to see one up close, you'll have to go to Seattle at the end of July. That's where Bentley will present the only seven examples it will make to their owners. The presentation will be made individually by the pilots at the Boeing Seafair Airshow – but only after what's sure to be the ride of their life on board one of the team's L-39 Albatros jets. BENTLEY CONTINENTAL GT SPEED BREITLING JET TEAM SERIES LIMITED EDITION - Seven limited edition Continental GT Speeds inspired by famed jets - Handcrafted models take Mulliner customisation to new heights - Continental GT Speed is fastest production Bentley ever - Models to debut at Boeing Seafair Airshow, Seattle, July 31 (Crewe, 30 June 2015) Bentley is taking its fusion of luxury and performance to new extremes with the launch of the Continental GT Speed Breitling Jet Team Series. This exclusive series is limited to just seven cars, each inspired by one of the seven Breitling Jets.

Daily Driver: 2015 Bentley Continental GT Speed

Daily Driver videos are micro-reviews of vehicles in the Autoblog press fleet, featuring impressions from the staffers that drive them every day. Today's Daily Driver features the 2015 Bentley Continental GT Speed coupe, reviewed by Steven Ewing. With a starting price of $235,000, it's not what you'd typically consider a "daily driver," but as we find out, this Bentley is indeed a car you could happily live with every single day. You can watch the video above or read a transcript below. Watch more Autoblog videos at /videos. VIDEO TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Hey, guys. This is senior editor Steven Ewing with another Daily Driver video. I'm in a car today that you wouldn't necessarily consider to be a daily driver by the normal logic. I'm driving the $235,000 2015 Bentley Continental GT Speed Coupe. Now, as its name would suggest with the word "speed" in there at the end, this is an incredibly powerful and incredibly quick car. [00:00:30] It's powered by a 6.0-liter twin-turbo W12 engine that makes about 626 horsepower and about 606 pound-feet of torque. As you can see, it is a seriously quick car. 0 to 60 is estimated to happen in about four seconds, and this thing will top out at over 205 miles per hour. It's not just the off the line acceleration, [00:01:00] it's how much power is available while you're already at speed. I'm on the freeway right now and just with a light tap of the throttle there's just this massive wave of torque that comes on. It's just smooth, seamless, it's effortless. It's really, really fun. You can really get it going hot into a corner, let it hug it, and it really just grips. It's got a ton of power. [00:01:30] It's a really nice-handling car. A lot of people tend to think of Bentleys as being cars that you're driven in. You picture a Mulsanne pulling up with a chauffeur, but that's not the case with the Continental. In fact, Bentley's done a lot of work in recent years to drive home the point that the Continental is the driver's car. You look at things like the GT V8 S, which is one of my favorite Bentleys they've ever produced, where it's a car that despite its heft and its size and all of that, it's [00:02:00] still pretty involving. The chassis tuning is really good. The steering's pretty good. It's actually a good to drive car. On top of that, it's incredibly quiet in here.