Bentley Continental GT3 could come to Oz
It's been a long time coming, but Bentley's return to racing could include AustraliaBentley will return to racing in 2014 with its stripped-out GT3 racer and there's a good chance it'll be raced in Australia.
The historic British brand unveiled the GT3 Concept at the 2012 Paris motor show and the final production version made its world debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed two weeks ago.
Currently undergoing FIA homologation, the purpose-built 447kW 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8-powered GT3 will undergo a number of unnamed development races before entering its first full season of racing in the FIA Blancpain Endurance Series, going head to head with the likes of McLaren’s 12C GT3, the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 and Lamborghini Gallardo GT3.
Nissan’s new GT-R Nismo GT3, which will also compete in the Blancpain series and World Endurance Championship next year, was last week confirmed for the 2014 Bathurst 12 Hour next February with Rick Kelly at the wheel.
Weighing just 1300kg -- more than a tonne less than its donor car -- just a dozen or so examples of the carbon-fibre-bodied Continental coupe will be built for selected privateer racers in 2014.
"We'd love to race in Australia," Bentley's Asia Pacific Head of Marketing and Communications Robin Peel told motoring.com.au, adding that demand from Australian customers to compete in the specially prepared racer was "enormous".
"Our plan is that we'd launch that car through a number of Bentley customers via teams that want to race it. We've got quite a lot of interest from Australians who want to race that car," explained Peel.
"In terms of our racing program, the back end of this year we'll finish our testing. The car was at Geneva then Goodwood -- it's running -- and we have capacity for probably 12 or 14 private cars to run for privateers."
If the Continental GT3 does make its way Down Under, it will be the first time a Bentley race car has been driven here in a very long time. Except for several famous historical outings and the EXP Speed 8 that raced over a decade ago at Le Mans, Bentley has not formally raced since it was purchased by Rolls-Royce in 1931.
Owned by Volkswagen since 1998, the British brand was founded by WO Bentley just weeks after the end of the World War I in January 1919, and won five Le Mans 24-hour races between 1924 and 1930.
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