By Christopher Tracy
The Millen family owns yet another record at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Rod Millen has achieved the fastest overall time up the mountain five times and Rhys has also been fastest overall twice.
In the last two years, Rhys has set the fastest production car record with Bentley Motors and the fast production SUV time. Rhys and the Bentley Bentayga achieved the time of 10:49.9 for the SUV record in 2018. The Bentayga’s W12 helped to propel the SUV at an average of 66.5 mph up to 14,115 feet.
This year, Rhys tackled the familiar task with a Continental GT liveried to celebrate “100 Extraordinary Years” for Bentley Motors.
Rhys and the Continental GT beat the previous production car record by 8 seconds, achieving a time of 10:18.488. The Continental was able to average 70 mph over the length of the course. Being that the Continental was a production model, it still was required to pass the safety requirements for the race. Rhys did not complete the race in full Bentley comfort but was in a race seat surrounded by a roll cage.
W12 For the Win
The Continental GT used a W12 engine, which Bentley claims is the world’s most advanced 12-cylinder engine. The power output delivers 626 horsepower and 664 lb. ft. of torque. The Continental drives all four wheels through an 8-speed ZF gearbox, which is still considered one of the best in the industry. The drivetrain played a major role in the Continental setting the record on Sunday because of the mixed weather conditions of rain, snow, and dry sections throughout the 5,000 feet of elevation change.
Kudos to Bentley on taking their production cars to the mountain. Here’s hoping that more manufacturers go racing too. Last year’s record allowed Bentley to sell a Limited Edition of the Bentayga honoring their achievement.
The Continental GT is really a good looking car. Especially when it’s not lime green. I’d drive one.
Jeff Glucker
For a vehicle that massive, that’s impressive. And as a side note, that Bentayga is damned ugly, despite its obvious relation to the GT.
What other “production car” could even come close to that time? Bentley has a neat selection of colours for the Continental GT. Of course, it’s not a car meant to hide:
https://i.ibb.co/3sNhbVV/continental-GT.png
I’d like to see Porsche give it a shot. I imagine they’ve got a few in the stable that could give a good show.
I’d be pretty confident a McLaren 720S would obliterate the Bentley.
On another note, Rhys Millen is a Bentley Boy!
If the conditions were right for sure, but I think the advantage of the 4WD Bentley is it’s going to be forgiving and stable when the drivers pushing on, where the McLaren might be more “nervous” I guess?
The McLaren has more power and 60% of the weight of the Bentley, is 2 seconds quicker in the quarter mile and about 50 seconds faster around the Nurburgring; it wouldn’t have to push on to be faster!
Yeah, that extra ton (plus!) of weight makes the Bentley an odd choice for such an exercise, but the question is whether the McLaren can manage to repeatedly utilize all of its power without losing traction. AWD is a huge advantage for the Bentley.
In a perfect world, there would be a company rep for McLaren casually reading this chatter, resulting in a “hold my beer”-moment and, finally, a worthwhile successor to the Mega Track:
https://i.ibb.co/NmpbgDF/5509b181fd24f2703ef4265f085e4c37.png
In a perfect world, there would be a company rep for McLaren casually reading this chatter, resulting in a “hold my beer”-moment and, finally, a worthwhile successor to the Mega Track:
https://i.ibb.co/NmpbgDF/5509b181fd24f2703ef4265f085e4c37.png
Lopping 8 seconds off a record seems huge, but that course has so many variables it’s never the same place. One would think something like a Carrera GT or Enzo could beat it, but who knows.
For a vehicle that massive, that’s impressive. And as a side note, that Bentayga is damned ugly, despite its obvious relation to the GT.
I know the switch from gravel to pavement makes it an irrelevant comparison, but that time puts it in contention with the Gran Turismo 2-dominating Escudo, which for a comfortable production car (if a very expensive one) is impressive.
I want one of these new Continentals. I don’t know how to feel about that.
It’s annoying isn’t it? Used to be that the big heavy cars could be lost in the twisties and their power could be outmatched by something light and perfectly balanced, our out accelerated by something with a better power to weight ratio. Now it feels like tyre/suspension/active chassis/torque vectoring gubbens some hippo of an SUV can breeze through the bends at speed while you’re white knuckling it in your “purist” car.
It’s just not very sporting.
I live somewhere with lots of dull straight roads and mediocre traffic, so I’m comfortable with finding a big comfortable coupe appealing (especially given the reviews on this have been quite favourable), although I totally get preferring something smaller, lighter, and more engaging. My struggle is wanting such a conspicuous consumption-mobile. I could probably fool myself into thinking the Bentayga has taken its place, and the Continental is for the connoisseurs, but then again, it’ll be a long, long time before one depreciates to my range.
I have no desire to own a Continental, but I think it’d be huge fun to drive one. I think it’s cool that Bentley can take something so massive and make it perform like that.
All you have to do to restore order is to hit this thing with an EMP. Then you can race right past this one in your Doble E-20*.
*enthusiast credentials will be removed if you need to google this one 🤪
Had to google it, not gonna lie.
You could probably get away with just using a car running a mechanical distributor, carbs or mechanical fuel injection instead of EFI? (yeah spark plugs, but they’re connected via high tension cables and probably would still work)
Mind you, knowing the state of car security these days, you could probably drive by hack it via some script kiddie level stuff.
I never realized it before, but does anyone else think that chrome accent along the lower side panels of the Continental is kinda evocative of a side pipe? Especially with the way the forward part of it widens out (not quite to the size needed for a full 4-into-1 fan, let alone the 6-into-1 that would be appropriate for the Continental, but still…), that’s all I can see now.