Here’s your chance to own Bentley’s wild Continental GT3 Pikes Peak racer

What happens when you strip over 800kg from a 2018 Continental GT, ramp its twin-turbo V8 up to around 1,000bhp and pack it with as many aero-harnessing bits as an F-22 Raptor? Quite simply the most unplugged Bentley since the days of the Speed 8, and one that’s set to cross the block this coming weekend, with Iconic Auctioneers estimating it'll fetch between £800,000 and £1m.

Dubbed the ‘Pikes Peak Special’, the single-seat, one-off racer started life as a GT3-R spec car that had been adapted for time attack racing by Derbyshire-based FastR. With them, it won the 2019 Time Attack Championship - a campaign Bentley had been following with interest. Its exploits led to a collaboration between the two which would see the car attempt a Pikes Peak ‘Time Attack 1’ class record run in 2021.

In essence, it’s still the same twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8, albeit re-engineered with new pistons, higher-pressure blowers (up to 2.2 bar) and a more extensive cooling system for that headline power figure. Yeah, wild.

Upgraded Akrapovic exhausts sit just behind the front wheel arches, and the sound, as we found out on our drive a few years back, is quite something. Less 'business express', more 'Sauron’s minion furiously smelting new mace'. And would you look at that aero kit? The front splitter could double up as a facemask for Pyramid Head, and we think that rear wing might actually be taller than The Shard. 

But despite showing strong pre-race form and with Pikes Peak legend Rhys Millen behind the wheel, a combination of poor weather and mechanical issues just one mile from the chequered flag meant the Conti finished five seconds off the pace of the winning GT2 RS - and fourth overall out of 55 cars. That’s still a very respectable result, of course, but its builders think this car can still go for that class record in the right hands. Reckon those are yours?