How Does A 1929 Bentley Blower Compare To Its Modern Descendants?

How Does A 1929 Bentley Blower Compare To Its Modern Descendants?

Don’t expect any big surprises here, but Carwow has managed to get four generations of high-performance Bentleys together on an airfield in order to race them against one another.

On the track, the team has assembled a modern Continental GT Speed, a Bentley Continental R Mulliner from the late ‘90s, and a Bentley Turbo R from the late ‘80s. They are lined up against their ancestor, a 93-year-old Bentley Blower.

All provided by Bentley to show the automaker’s history of performance, the Blower featured in this video is the genuine article, not a continuation special. It is, therefore, the most expensive vehicle ever featured on the channel, with an estimated value of £20 million ($23 million USD at current exchange rates).

More: Bentley Gives Birth To Blower Continuation Series ‘Car Zero’ Prototype

Powered by a 4.0-liter inline four-cylinder engine, it makes a rather impressive 240 hp (179 kW/243 PS) and an estimated 258 lb-ft (350 Nm) of torque. Next to cars that make between 60 to 400 hp more (45 kW/61 PS to 298 kW/405 PS more), it does rather well.

Still, in the quarter-mile sprint, it is thoroughly beaten, taking 21.3 seconds at a top speed of 70 mph (113 km/h). By comparison, the Continental GT Speed took just 11.4 seconds – just a little over half as long.

In the rolling race, though, it did very well. Although it finished last, it was much closer to the competition and managed to top 80 mph (129 km/h). In the braking test, too, all of the cars did rather well. Although the Blower took much longer to stop than the rest, it stopped faster than you might expect for such an ancient vehicle.

Where the Blower excelled the most, though, was in the final test. With all four drivers piling into the 93-year-old Bentley, it was still capable of reaching 80 mph (129 km/h), though not in what you might call comfort.

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