Projects

In November of 2023, nearly 2 years to date after purchasing the Aston Martin Vantage, we pulled the trigger on a 2009 Bentley Continental. As per usual with our projects of choice, it needed some work. The car had been in a minor accident, but the majority of the damage was cosmetic. The car had some bumps and dents around the body, but the majority of the damage involved the front bumper and front fenders. Overall though, the car was in good shape and ran just fine.

Within days of being in possession of the car, we removed the front bumper and fenders which unfortunately were not savable. But luckily parts were not hard to find, and there was even some sportier front bumper designs on the market we could choose from. The dents and scratches around the rest of the car were repairable, so as far as repairing the car went, it wasn’t going to take too difficult. Of course we aren’t going to leave the car stock; that would be very unlike us. Now, we were very limited with what we could do to this car on the exterior, but we already knew that. While we did have some ideas to enhance the car cosmetically and mechanically, our main focus was going to be on the interior. 

The interior was so 2009, and we wanted to change that. Not to mention it had almost 15 years of wear and tear. We didn’t want to completely redesign the interior, but instead give it an updated look, and of course, add some carbon fiber in a tasteful manner. The majority of the interior was the same shade of grey, and while we weren’t opposed by the color, we felt like it need an accent. To sum up the interior, we ended up redoing the entire interior. Starting with the leather, we had the entire dash redone, the center console, the seats, the steering wheel; you name it, we did it. The only thing we didn’t replace is the floor carpets, and most of the buttons and switches. For the accent we were talking about, we went with a dark grey leather, adding this shade around the dash cluster, the center and outer most section of the upper dash, the center portion of the seats, the sides of the center console, the glove box, portions of the doors and the center portion between the back seats. We also kept the diamond stitch pattern with the seats, and even added it to the center portion between the back seats and on the ceiling finished in the darker grey leather. We also upgraded the infotainment system with a large 12 inch touch screen, and refinished the steering wheel making it more aggressive, one of our signature moves. For the carbon fiber we used, we went with a very unusual weave pattern, a pattern that you may have not seen before. This weave takes the shape of a diamond, which we thought would look cool considering the diamond stich pattern on the seats and the ceiling. We added carbon just about everywhere we could. We went with our carbon fiber skinning process, adding a layer of real carbon fiber to the factory parts. We skinned the cluster surround panel, parts of the steering wheel, the passenger dash panel, the center console, the new custom infotainment trim surround, the center door trims, the seat belt trim panel, the lower portions of the seats, the seat backing panels, the inner and outer door sill trims, and lastly the rear center console. While the interior is probably the highlight of the entirely build, lets circle back to the exterior of the car, and the 552 horsepower twin turbo W12 monster that powers this thing. 

The looks of the Bentley Continental are iconic. No matter the generation, front to back, it’s an incredible piece of British engineering. We felt the car was perfect as it was, however, being the car was nearly 15 years old at the time, we felt we could improve the way it looked, drove and handled slightly. Starting with the body of the car, we had any dents and scratches buffed out. We replaced the damaged front bumper with the euro style front bumper, and painted the front grills black. We also went ahead and did a full exterior chrome delete. We wrapped and painted every chrome component on the exterior gloss black, which made a massive difference. We also painted the front and rear Bentley badges gloss black, and added a low profile trunk spoiler. We upgraded the rotors, and calipers, added 22 inch gloss black wheels, and lowered the car slightly using the stock suspension. As far as performance goes, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a 552 horsepower twin turbo, but we could make it sound better. We went ahead and added a Fabspeed midpipe, and a Milltek muffler delete to really help that W12 scream. And to top it all off we added a pair of BMC air filters and a 100hp tune by Velocity AP, bumping the car up to 667 horsepower. Making our third vehicle project complete. First the Porsche 996, then the Aston Martin Vantage, and now the Bentley Continental; what’s next? McLaren? Ferrari? Lamborghini?