Luxury carmaker Bentley just revealed the car it is going to use to take part in the upcoming Pikes Peak International Hill Climb event in the USA. Rhys Millen, a professional racing driver from New Zealand, will be piloting a lightly modified Continental GT in an attempt to set a new world record in the Production Vehicle class.
The Bentley team hopes the man will manage to finish the almost 20-kilometer long (12.42-mile long) track faster than 10 minutes 26 seconds. This will be in no way easy, given that there are altitude variations in a 1,500-meter (5,000-feet) range.
The factory-issue Bentley Continental GT comes powered by a 6.0-liter turbo W12 rated at 635 hp (474 kW) along with 900 Nm (664 lb×ft) of torque. It uses a custom semi-automatic transmission based on Porsche’s PDK gearbox. Sprinting from zero to one hundred kilometers per hour (62 mph) takes 3.6 seconds, while the top going speed amounts to 333 km/h (207 mph).
The Pikes Peak vehicle will not be much different from the stock one, since the regulations for the race only allow minor tweaks.
Bentley already claimed a Pikes Peak victory last year, when its Bentayga SUV won gold in the Production SUV class.
Photos: Bentley