Monday 27th June 2011

Bentley Unveils 'Mulliner Styling' For Conti GT

Carbon fibre tweakery adds 'further drama' to Continental. Apparently

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Bentley has given its recently refreshed Continental GT a further tickle, with a range of 'styling options' called the Mulliner Styling Specification.

The main part of this is the 'Classic Pack'. Styled by Raul Pires, Bentley's head of exterior design, this features a unique front bumper splitter, strakes integrated into the front intake grilles, side 'extension blades' (no, we don't know what that means either - we think it's what you call side skirts when you put them on a £135k car) and a rear diffuser, all made from high-gloss, black carbon fibre.

In addition to the Classic Pack, there are four other Mulliner Styling Specification choices. There's the option of carbon firbre-ising the automatically retracting rear spoiler, carbon fibre door mirror cowls, curved wing vents, or 21-inch 7-spoke 'Elegant' alloy wheels in a black-painted finish with contrasting bright machined detailing.

If you fancy speccing-up your Conti with the Classic Pack, that'll set you back £7540, while the door mirrors will be an extra £2241, the rear spoiler another £2241, the bespoke curved wing vents a not inconsiderable £4762 and the 'Elegant' alloys a cool £5940.

All of which means that, should you decided to fully 'Mullinerise' your Conti, you'll be paying near enough £160k for your new 'P and J'...

[Swifty Stig]

[Mr Gear]

Oh great, a big, lardy luxury car with stick-on "weight saving".

Just the ticket for mentally ill people with lots of money.

[cc8s]

Why are there side intakes on the first picture but none on the 5th? Overall is looks quite nice to me.

[Tuvra]

Ill take mine in grey with gloss black wheels please...

[Chicane-UK]

Mr Gear said:

Oh great, a big, lardy luxury car with stick-on "weight saving".

Just the ticket for mentally ill people with lots of money.

But..but..it might save 1gm/km of CO2! They need to be seen to be doing "their bit" for the environment!

[groomi]

I take it the 'gill' behind the front wheelarch is optional, given that it appears on one of the three pictures...

[louismchuge]

£2,241 wing mirrors

[Alfa numeric]

Article said:

'Mullinerise'

I think the word you're looking for is "muller"

Actually it doesn't look too bad- although it seems a bit dear and I'm not a fan of carbon for carbon's sake so personally I wouldn't bother.

Not that I can afford to anyway.

[toppstuff]

I am a big fan of Bentley. I had the pleasure of visiting the factory and I was genuinely impressed with the level of workmanship and pride that goes into the car. Their German owners also seem to really care about the brand and the culture in the factory, too.

But I'm not sure about this. Be careful, chaps. Be very careful. This is borderline tacky IMO.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt as I think they are doing OK as guardians of a fantastic brand. Having said that, it will probably sell well and in this economic climate it's all about keeping the sales up.

My main concern is that the Conti Mk2 is too conservative, too similar to the Mk1. It makes a used Mk 1 look like awesome value, given that the new one does not look very different. I think they should have been braver.

[Bash Brannigan]

Looks like something from Project Kahn.

[Alfa159Ti]

Good lord I must be turning into a chav.

I think that car looks immense!

Extras are a little pricey though aren't they?

I bought the missus a really nice low mileage MK1 MX5 for roughly half the price of that set of mirrrors!

[KrazyIvan]

2 grand for mirrors, for that price i'd want my own butler in the back seat to tell me whats behind.

[S18DMW]

Footballers can now ruin there car with factory options. Yay....

[M666 EVO]

Door mirrors over 2k? WTF...

So if you smash them not only are you down 2 large but you get 7 years bad luck? Bummer

[soad]

Not keen on those mirrors, colour need to match bodywork for my liking.
Nice motor though

[howardhughes]

Very nice indeed, I had the pleasure of being in one of the first generation models on a 200 mile drive to London. Quite simply a beautiful looking car with performance to match. Not forgetting First Class luxury.

[Tim16V]

They really are treading a fine line now with the plundering the historic name bin and hilariously expensive 'less is more' tack ons that are very nearly just plain tacky.

Don't suppose the footballers (or overseas buyers) mind and can live with the depreciation for that matter, but the nicely depreciated slightly older ones with both attitude and elegance look seriously good value against this.

[MrCarCoach]

As has been mentioned here already, Bentley are bordering on naff here. Trouble is, these options will sell and do appeal to the Middle Eastern market. But they do have to be careful about preserving the class of the Bentley brand with these options, the GT already suffers from negative connotations after all.

Regards,

Mr.CarCoach.

[E36GUY]

I hate all variants of this car. I appreciate its dynamics but I still can't believe how something so expensive can be so chav at the same time.