Bentley not races at Le Mans, however throughout the automaker’s childhood it dominated the occasion, scoring 5 wins between 1924 and 1930. Two of these wins, in 1929 and 1930, have been achieved by the legendary Pace Six because of efforts of Bentley Boys “Tim” Birkin, Glen Kidston, and Woolf Barnato. Barnato was additionally chairman of Bentley on the time.

Bentley final yr stated it deliberate to construct 12 trendy examples of the Pace Six as a part of a Continuation Collection program that kicked off late final decade with trendy examples of the 1929 Bentley Blower. In this system, Bentley builds further variations of early vehicles, with components that in lots of circumstances are created utilizing the identical methods as again within the day.

The primary of the trendy Pace Six vehicles has now been accomplished, a prototype model that might be retained by Bentley. It was offered for the primary time on Thursday on the 2023 Goodwood Pageant of Pace. As a prototype, it will likely be used for real-world sturdiness testing, together with on the racetracks.

Manufacturing of the primary buyer automobile will start in October. Every automobile will take round 10 months to finish and all 12 are scheduled to be accomplished by the top of 2025. The group at Bentley’s Mulliner personalization division, the identical group chargeable for the earlier Blower Continuation Collection, is chargeable for the challenge.

1930 Bentley Pace Six Continuation Collection prototype

Constructing the vehicles is not a simple course of, particularly as Bentley wished to construct Pace Sixes matching the specification of the Le Mans winners. The group relied on unique drawings, mechanics’ notes, and 3D scanning of the unique vehicles.

Within the case of the engine alone, in extra of 600 particular person components have been required. Preliminary dyno testing of the trendy 6.5-liter inline-6 has proven the engine delivers 205 hp at its peak, which is inside 5 hp of what’s documented for the unique race-tuned engine.

1930 Bentley Pace Six Continuation Collection prototype

The pursuit of authenticity extends to the colours of the paint and inside trim, which the group matched to samples on the archives of the U.Okay.’s Nationwide Motor Museum.

In case you are questioning, all 12 construct slots for the trendy Pace Six are gone, regardless of a price ticket of 1.5 million euros (roughly $1.67 million).