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That Time Touring Superleggera Created a Bentley Shooting Brake Out of a GTC
Bentley Continental Flying Star by Touring Superleggera
Words Carlo Brema / Photos Touring Superleggera
In 2008, a term like Shooting Brake was not of common use. Fortunately, a wealthy customer decides to make his dream come true and call Italian coachbuilder Touring Superleggera, creator of some of the most beautiful cars ever, including shooting brakes of course. The goal is to create a Bentley with two doors and a massive tailgate, leaving nothing to chance and therefore using sophisticated solutions and materials capable of conveying a sense of luxury, purity and beauty that just two years later would inevitably created a stir and admiration in the whole automotive scene.
The starting point is that of the two-door Continental GT, but in the GTC version, this for pure reasons of chassis rigidity and this is how an accurate project started, carried out by the craftsmen of the Milanese bodywork, who managed to give life to a sinuous and streamlined shape, maintaining two doors to access the passenger compartment and introducing a large tailgate, which conceals a perfectly functional loading surface with a capacity ranging from 400 liters to 1,200, once all the rear seats are folded down. Staying true to the Superleggera name (superlight), each added outer panel is made of ultra-lightweight steel, even decreasing the overall weight of the Flying Star by 30kg compared to the GTC donor.
The glance is one that does not betray, with a front that has remained unchanged and a three-quarter view that reveals the tail which, softly descend almost giving shape to a sort of boxed trunk, recalling the luxurious cars of decades earlier and declining everything in a modern key, also thanks to the majesty of the Borrani wheels, a £8,000 options. The front portion of the passenger compartment remains unchanged, while for the engine, Touring has decided to apply the Speed package, thus bring the car in Crewe upgrading the 6-litre W12 with 600 horsepower and 800 Nm of torque, at the time the maximum performance that could be chosen for a Bentley.
The Flying Star is a car of class and refinement, built in very few examples and with a price that at the time started at around 510,000 pounds for the Continental step and 575,000 for the Speed version, however perfectly capable of continuing to perform the dual role of a “random” contemporary Bentley, which are to run fast and do that in full relax. The driving experience is accentuated by exclusivity also perceived thanks to details such as the 2.4-metre long side window and by the fact that even today, 12 years after its creation, it is incredibly beautiful to look at, just like a work of art. The only difference is that we have never heard of a painting that accelerates from 0 to 100 kph in just 3.9 seconds.
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