What do you do if you can’t be seen seated in a car that’s not entirely made for yourself? You enlist the expertise of the world’s oldest coachbuilder with almost 500 years of experience and heritage, of course.
Introducing the Bentley Bacalar, Bentley’s ultra-rare coachbuilt luxury statement piece. The name Bacalar comes from Laguna Bacalar in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, a lake renowned for its breath-taking natural beauty.
Perhaps more important than the car itself, the Bacalar is also an effort to kick start Mulliner’s return to coachbuilding, instead of just being another trim level in a Bentley car, albeit a very high-end one.
Each model of the Bacalar will be handcrafted in Bentley Mulliner’s workshop in Crewe, according to each individual customer’s personal tastes, therefore guaranteeing the rarity and exclusivity of each example.
The Bacalar is specifically sculpted and designed, inspired by the Centenary celebration concept piece – the EXP 100 GT – and does not share any single body panel with another Bentley. The only re-used component is the door handle from a Continental GT, only because it houses the keyless entry system.
To become the most exquisite car, you’ll of course have to use the most extraordinary materials. But fear not, as Bentley Mulliner has prepared a collection of only the finest sustainable materials on earth, from the rice husk ash-infused paint, to natural British wool, and 5,000-year old Riverwood sourced from the ancient Fenlands of East Anglia.
Though, there is just one problem, and it’s the fact that the Bacalar does not have a roof. No, not even those manually-attached fabric cover. According to Bentley, that’s to mimic the genuine roofless barchetta sports car design of old.
Powering the Bacalar is the familiar six-litre W12 TSI engine, but now uprated to an output of 659 hp and 900 Nm of torque. The Bacalar will also be equipped with an active all-wheel drive system, where power is sent to the rear wheels as much as possible for “optimum efficiency and dynamic performance”.
The Bacalar is reportedly priced at USD2 million apiece. If you are thinking of getting your hands on one of these though, unfortunately there will only be 12 examples ever made, with all of them already allocated to buyers worldwide.
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