The Bentley Hunaudières is a

concept car A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle or show vehicle) is a car made to showcase new styling or new technology. Concept cars are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or may not ...

built by

Bentley Bentley Motors Limited is a British designer, manufacturer and marketer of Luxury vehicle, luxury cars and Sport utility vehicle, SUVs. Headquartered in Crewe, England, the company was founded by W. O. Bentley (1888–1971) in 1919 in Crickle ...

for the 1999 Geneva Salon International de l'Auto. It is powered by a

Volkswagen Volkswagen (VW; )English: , . is a German automotive industry, automobile manufacturer based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Established in 1937 by German Labour Front, The German Labour Front, it was revitalized into the global brand it ...

8.0-litre,

naturally aspirated A naturally aspirated engine, also known as a normally aspirated engine, and abbreviated to N/A or NA, is an internal combustion engine in which air intake depends solely on atmospheric pressure and does not have forced induction through a turboc ...

, WR16 engine adapted and modified by

to generate of power at 6,000 rpm and of torque at 4,000

rpm Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or r⋅min−1) is a unit of rotational speed (or rotational frequency) for rotating machines. One revolution per minute is equivalent to hertz. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 def ...

in conjunction with a five-speed

manual transmission A manual transmission (MT), also known as manual gearbox, standard transmission (in Canadian English, Canada, British English, the United Kingdom and American English, the United States), or stick shift (in the United States), is a multi-speed ...

. It is capable of a top speed. DTW LITC 072 gen99

Name

The Hunaudières' name pays homage to the famous straight of

Circuit de la Sarthe The Circuit des 24 Heures du Mans, also known as Circuit de la Sarthe (after the 1906 French Grand Prix triangle circuit) located in Le Mans, Sarthe, France, is a semi-permanent motorsport race course, chiefly known as the venue for the 24 H ...

where Sir Tim Birkin in a "Blower Bentley" overtook

Rudolf Caracciola Otto Wilhelm Rudolf Caracciola (30 January 1901 – 28 September 1959) was a German racing driver.Bolsinger and Becker (2002), p. 63 He won the European Championship (auto racing), European Drivers' Championship, the pre-1950 equivalent of the m ...

in a Mercedes-Benz SSK at with one wheel on the grass down the Hunaudières straight.

Production

The concept, along with the similar Audi Rosemeyer, led to the production of the

Bugatti Veyron The Bugatti Veyron EB 16.4 is a mid-engine sports car designed and developed in Germany by the Volkswagen Group and Bugatti, and manufactured in Molsheim, France by French automobile manufacturer Bugatti. It was named after the racing driver Pi ...

by parent company

Video game

The Bentley Hunaudières was featured in the 2000 video game TOCA World Touring Cars as an unlockable car.

References

Sports cars Hunaudières Rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive vehicles {{Modern-auto-stub