THE ICONIC SALE AT RACE RETRO 22nd February 2025

+ buyer’s premium of 12.5% plus VAT (15% incl VAT) 43 Our vendor is a long-term Bentley enthusiast and his Derbyshire-based business, FastR, is involved in the preparation of cars for the British Drift Championship and the Time Attack Championship. In late 2018 he acquired this Continental GT3-R to run in Time Attack during 2019 with support from Roger Clark Motorsport and M-Sport and running the car unrestricted, putting out around 750bhp, they won at a number of circuits, setting many new lap records along the way and winning the 2019 Time Attack Championship. At the end of the year, the team were considering ways to further develop the car when, during an end of season review with Bentley, it was explained that Bentley had been keeping an eye on their performances and that as it was such an unconventional approach they might like to consider a collaboration on a special project, that being Pikes Peak. The Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC), also known as ‘The Race to the Clouds’, is an invitational automobile hill climb to the summit of Pikes Peak – America’s Mountain in Colorado - and is held on the last Sunday in June. From the start at 9,400ft, the 12.42 mile course has 156 bends and finishes at 14,115ft, a climb of over 4,700ft, not far short of a mile vertically. If you were in an unpressurised aeroplane at that height, you would have been wearing an oxygen mask for some time, so setting up an internal combustion engine to run on reduced oxygen levels can be complex. In common with most manufacturers, Bentley felt that the days of the gasoline-fuelled internal combustion engine were numbered and their ‘Beyond100’ sustainability strategy included work on renewable fuel, initiating a research and development programme that aimed to offer renewable fuels to Bentley customers in parallel with Bentley’s electrification programme. This two-strand strategy was set to maximise the pace of Bentley’s progress towards outright carbon neutrality. However, Bentley had traditionally been associated with motorsport and sporting motoring and someone at Bentley thought it would be great if the company could set a few records with their internal combustion-engined production cars that were unlikely to be broken as fewer and fewer manufacturers were going to be building powerful, large capacity ICE cars. Having already successfully run their Bentayga up the Pikes Peak Mountain in 2018 to set a new SUV record, they followed that up with another successful run in the Continental GT in 2019, just one year later, for a production car record. So, whilst considering how they could achieve the ‘Triple Crown’ with an attempt on the ‘Time Attack 1’ record (closed cockpit, unlimited power output, production-based machines), our vendor’s 2019 Time Attack-winning Continental GT3 appeared on the radar. At the end of the late 2019 meeting, it was agreed that Bentley would prepare and run (in conjunction with FastR and Roger Clark Motorsport) our vendor’s car in an attempt on Pikes Peak in 2020 and hopefully return with the third piece of silverware to sit in the Boardroom Trophy Cabinet forever. Having piloted the Bentayga and Continental GT to wins, Kiwi veteran, twice ‘King of the Mountain’, Rhys Millen agreed to drive again. The agreement was that bently would cover the majority of the development, testing and running costs associated with the event, with our vendor making a proportinal contribution. The arrival of COVID meant that the 2020 event was run a year later in 2021. The car was 18 seconds ahead of the other class entries during testing in the week prior, so everybody knew it had potential to do exceptionally well. Sadly, on race day, despite months of back-to-back testing, it did not go our vendors way! Ice at the top of the hill meant that the event was truncated, shortened, and then just a few miles short of the, now lowered, finish line a simple failure and meant that Rhys was only able to complete the run using lower gears for the last few miles. The car still won the ‘Development Fuel’ class, but having set record times in all three stages of testing in the days prior, it finished just five seconds short of the Porsche GT2 RS. This is Bentley’s very last conventionally powered race car, developed and run in an official factory program. It was also the first car they ever ran on a synthetic fuel and one of the most extreme cars (with around 1,000bhp at the rear wheels) they have ever built. The Pikes Peak Special, built by the factory to be the most extreme Bentley GT3 ever, with a build cost of over £1,000,000 and the final, ultimate incarnation of an internal combustion engine-powered competition car from the home of W.O.Bentley. Registration: N/A Chassis No.: 10 Estimate: £800,000 - £1,000,000 Specialist: Gary Dunne Telephone No: 07740 946796 Lot 521 2018 Bentley Continental GT3 - Pikes Peak Special More Details Lot 521 Bid On Lot 521