Each February I go to Palm Beach, that’s in Florida for you Geographically-challenged, with my wife and kids to thaw out from the northeast winter. While my in-laws take the kids to the beach, my wife and I go for a run around the island. We usually split up because a) I can’t keep up with her, and b) I stop every ten feet to take a picture of some car. One of the cars I saw this year was a Bentley Continental R with Washington D.C. plates of the “taxation without representation” kind. Cute.
The plate was cute, but not the car. The car was huge, even by modern day huge car standards. It was also handsome, graceful, and not exotic car flashy. It was confident, rich, and it was telling others that it doesn’t give a fuck. It wasn’t a veedub with lipstick like the current run of Bentley Continentals. It was the kind of a car that we will see at concours shows in thirty years or so, and will spend a few minutes absorbing it.

 

It should be no surprise then that some people who cannot afford a real Bentley Continental R, but really want one, would attempt to make one themselves. And someone did. And it’s an Oldsmobile. And, of course, it’s on Craigslist.
From the ad:

Bentley Continental replica – $10995 (irmo)

Bentley continental replica in great shape. contact for details. The kit for this car was over 15,000.
The car is on a 1991 oldmobile cutlass frame that was customized for this kit
Mileage is un known.
Car drive and handles great and is fully loaded.

 

It actually looks kind of good from about a hundred feet away. There are two pictures of the interior and it looks like good amount was spent on the timber there. The seats looks good-ish, for a replica, too! Wheels are almost period correct, although the off-set seems way off. And then they completely dropped the ball on the taillights. I mean, what the hell happened there?
Under the hood is the not-so-mighty 3400 SFI. The ad says that it is from a 1991 Oldsmobile, but that looks like a Gen III engine, which came out in 1993. I would be shocked if the maker/seller of this fine automobile would not know the details of the chassis that they used.
Coach building at its finest, as my friend called it. What really blows my mind about replica cars is how many of them there actually are. Yes, I do think it is completely stupid to build replicas like that, but this also tells me that since so many are made, there are even dumber people who are actually buying them!


Hat tip to our man Bozi!