Photo of the day: the 80,000th Bentley Continental GT

By topgear, 29 January 2021

Ladies and gents, you’re looking at the 80,000th Bentley Continental GT. Now, eighty thousand cars in a near 20-year production run would be extraordinary for the wrong reasons in most areas of the car market. But in the bespoke world of Bentley, it’s a chunky number.

The car in question is the Orange Flame GT V8 sat in the middle of this family photo, where it’s been lined up with nine other cars from the Conti’s life thus far.

They include everything from the very first GT to roll off the line in 2003 to a Continental GT3 racecar, via a pair of record holders: the Ice Speed Record GT, which broke the ice speed record at 199.8mph in 2007, and the 2019 Pikes Peak GT which nearly deafened us last year.

Quite some family, huh? Bentley claims that in the 18 years since the Conti GT first launched, its emissions have reduced by 48 per cent while power has climbed by 27 per cent.

And if you want an even more impressive number, then the orange car sat amongst its forebears represents one of the 17 billion possible spec configurations currently possible when you buy a GT. So, has the buyer nailed it? Or would you have gone for something different?