2004 Bentley Continental Gt, No Reserve, Clear Title on 2040-cars

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Bentley celebrates its founder with the Mulsanne W.O. Edition by Mulliner

July 10, 2018, marked the beginning of Bentley's centenary celebration. We can look forward to a year of commemorations, starting with the Mulsanne W.O. Edition by Mulliner, limited to 100 units. The sedan, available in standard, long-wheelbase, and Speed versions, celebrates founder Walter Owen Bentley and his 1930 8 Litre. The founder's personal car, the last vehicle he designed for his company and the second example off the production line, wore a coachbuilt body from Henry Jervis Mulliner & Co. That's the same Mulliner firm that personalizes Bentleys to this day. Walter Owen didn't get to enjoy his "ultimate expression of automotive engineering" for long; financial troubles forced him to sell it in 1931. Bentley bought the 8-Litre in 2006, and part of the "sympathetic" restoration meant replacing the crankshaft. That crank is the central feature of the W.O. Edition Mulsanne: Bentley cut the crankshaft into 100 pieces, and will place each piece inside a custom, illuminated cocktail cabinet in the rear quarters of the 100 special Mulsannes. Four different woods and aluminum create a marquetry scene that frames a glass display with the emblematic crankshaft. Around that, the show vehicle gets Heritage Hides in Fireglow, with Beluga details and stitching, Dark Stain Burr Walnute veneers, and Fireglow lambswool carpets. The exterior's drenched in Onyx, with Beluga Black wheels, accessorized by a chrome hood strip, optional chrome grille and surround, and discrete special edition badging. Customers can, naturally, option their own W.O. Edition Mulsannes any way they wish. Bentley's chosen to skip Goodwood as the reveal of this particular treat. The public unveiling comes on our shores, at next month's Monterey Car Week, on Aug. 24. Related Video:

Behold my hideous Bentley!

Do you all just love my hideous Bentley? It's so insane and tacky. I'm sure if I were to actually order this a British lord somewhere would dispatch his valet to slap me.  Who knows where I'll figuratively be in two weeks' time, but today turns out to be the day I turned to see just how tacky certain car configurators will let you get. Admittedly, they're almost all high-dollar, extra-low-volume cars. If you try to play around on a Honda configurator, you'll have wrapped things up in about 30 seconds.  But Bentley, now that's a company that'll let you get tacky on its configurator. I chose the new Continental GT Convertible because the lowered roof would make it easy to demonstrate in pictures the level of my tackiness. From there, it was this eye-searing Apple Green, though I was certainly tempted by Azure Purple and Magenta. Roof choice? I was expecting there to be more, nevertheless, Claret red seemed like a suitably awful pairing.  Inside, well, let's crack those knuckles and get to work. Luckily, Bentley lets you choose two different leather colors: Main and Secondary "hides" with five choices of how to split those colors. Sorry, colours. I chose Colour Split B cause it seemed to have the most of each colour. For the Main Hide, I went with Hotspur, an extremely red shade of red that would be home in an early 2000s BMW. Cumbrian Green and Damson purple were tempting, but they just weren't bright enough, and I thought they wouldn't pair poorly enough with the Secondary Hide: Newmarket Tan, which is pretty damn orange. You can't see it, but the interior of the roof is Blue. For the veneer, I went with Tamo Ash, 'cause yuck. Finally, throw on some black wheels, and voila, my tacky Bentley. I must say, this is most definitely tackier than the real Bentley Flying Spur I once tested that looked like South Beach threw up inside. So much white and teal. Oh, and that ash wood. A Bentley rep told me they ordered it by mistake.  Now, Bentley isn't the only high-dollar outfit that lets you indulge in such tacky fantasies. Most other British brands do, including Mini, and the Germans offer plenty of color choices as well, usually through some special custom program like Audi Exclusive. Porsche makes it especially easy, though, which you can see in my other craptacular creation below.

The myth and mystery of The Bentley Cocktail

The other day, we were trying to find ways to delight a visiting relative who requested a cocktail made with apple brandy (don't ask), and after poring through Mr. Boston and The Playboy Bartender's Guide we were fortunate enough to come across a recipe. This particular concoction piqued our interest not just because it was a means to get rid of that bottle of Calvados that had been malingering on our bar cart, drawing fruit flies and quizzical scorn, since it was gifted to us at the launch of the Peugeot 407 in 2004. It was because of the automotive connection. (Duh.) The cocktail is called The Bentley, and it has a sexy, if probably apocryphal, origin story. According to the legend, the Bentley Boys – rich, Jazz Age, car-loving, British playboy racers – invented the drink after their first of five Le Mans victories, in 1924. Canadian-born WWI hero and Olympic swordsman John Duff and local English Bentley test driver and Bentley 3-Liter Super Sport owner Frank Clement were the only British team and vehicle in this second-ever endurance race, surrounded by more than three dozen French drivers and cars (and a couple of Germans). But despite typical British maladies ­– broken shocks, seized lug nuts, and a dysfunctional gearshift – and a slew of fires, punctures, and chassis-snapping wrecks amongst the field, they persevered. Arriving at their celebratory party at their club near their adjoining apartments in London's exclusive Mayfair neighborhood, they discovered that all of the alcohol had been consumed, with the exception of Calvados and Dubonnet. Mixing these together in equal parts, and adding some bitters, they allegedly invented a drink to settle their affluent nerves. Like most folkloric explanations for the existence of some gross cocktails – the wisecrack-inspired Tom Collins, the whole-cloth-concocted Seelbach – the tale seemed as compelling to us as it was ridiculous. Fortunately, among our friends are many with mastery in mixology, so we decided to put the mystery (and recipe) to them. "To be honest, I'd never even heard of the cocktail," said Tokyo-based international beverage expert Nick Coldicott, the most skeptical of our potation pundits. "And that story smells fishy to me. It seems unlikely that a party venue would have enough of a booze collection to have Calvados and Dubonnet, but not enough whisky or gin or champagne to see the party out.