The British luxury marque has taken its Bentley Continental GT Speed to the Northern Territory and recorded it hitting a top speed of 331km/h. Since 2014, when the territory reinstituted unlimited speed zones, the NT has one of three public roads in the world where there's officially no speed limit.
For Bentley's high speed run, the Volkswagen-owned brand enlisted the services of two-time Bathurst 1000 winner John Bowe. Even with the race car driver behind the wheel, the company worked with authorities to close off a section of the unrestricted Stuart Highway. A helicopter monitored progress at all times and a full safety check was done on the vehicle beforehand. The Continental GT Speed required 76 seconds and 9.4 kilometres to hit its top of speed of 331km/h, a speed recorded by a Motec GPS speedometer. At v-max, the car was covering 91.94 metres per second, or roughly the length of a soccer pitch every second.
According to Bentley, at 331km/h the 467kW/820Nm 6.0-litre W12 was circulating around 216 litres of coolant per minute through itself and the radiator. It was also drawing in 4700 litres of air through its radiator every second. The company estimates that at that speed, around 80 percent of engine's power was being used to overcome aerodynamic loads.
