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Bentley to Build Iconic Race Car Replicas
Bentley’s centennial celebration continue apace and the latest announcement by the iconic 100-year-old British car brand is that it is to build 12 replicas of one of its most historic racing cars.
The project will see Bentley embark on a unique continuation series of what is perhaps the company’s most revered heritage car ever – Sir Tim Birkin’s supercharged 4½-liter Team Blower race car.
The original production run didn’t even make it to double figures, making it an extremely rare car. Only four of them were built to be raced across Europe, including at Le Mans.
“The four Team Blowers are the most valuable Bentleys in the world, and we know there is demand for genuine recreations that can be used, enjoyed and loved without risk to the prized originals,” says Bentley Chairman and Chief Executive, Adrian Hallmark.
Bentley will completely disassemble Team Blower Chassis No. HB 3404 to reverse engineer the entire process. Each component will be catalogued and 3D scanned to replicate them and build the continuation cars.
Original molds and tooling combined with modern manufacturing techniques will be used for the project and a total of 12 replicas will be made – one for each race the original four Team Blowers competed in.
Bentley says the continuation cars will be as close to identical to the original car as possible. Because of the exclusivity of the 12 examples, Bentley has not revealed the pricing.