Bentley left the Grand Coupe business when it made the last of 550 Brooklands models in 2011. The British car manufacturer said it will make 19 copies of the Mulsanne Grand Convertible, but that does not count as a coupé. So when an American Mulsanne owner wanted to have his Bentley with a roof but a touch less four-door, he went to the Italian bodybuilders Ares Design. And not only did Ares do the thing, they did it brilliantly. The resulting two-door is called the Ares Design Coupe for the Bentley Mulsanne, and the first was handed over just in time in Beverly Hills for an appearance with Pebble Beach.
Ares based on Modena started with a three-dimensional scan of the sedan and then reworked that CAD file in the coupe they were looking for by changing almost everything behind the A-pillars. A re-profiled roof replaces the old one, and it falls into a new backlight and a longer tailgate. The engineers have moved the B-pillars backwards to install longer front doors and have created a new side impact protection for the portals and the rear side panels. New chrome edges on the windows retain the appearance of Crewe. But because the roof and doors are made of carbon fiber, they contribute to the total weight loss of 992 pounds compared to the four-door donor.
Inside, Ares replaced the front seats with more graceful thrones, redesigned the interior trim panels to allow them to move with the body variant, and matched the wood and leather as if they were originally in the factory. Under the unmodified bonnet, a tuned ECU means that the 6.75-liter twin-turbo V8 produces more than 591 hp and 811 pound-foot torque, both healthy improvements on the stock of 505 hp and 752 lb-ft. The coupe completes the transformation and is 20 millimeters lower on "a sportier chassis".
One report said that a friend of the Californian owner likes the car so much that a second two-door has been taken into use. Ares is asking $ 460,000 for the service, to begin with, and it takes about six weeks. And no, that price does not include the donor Bentley. That is a lot less than that Bentley would ask to make the swap, because the car manufacturer will not make the actual car. The Italian company said it was the volumes & ultra-low & # 39; wanted to keep, and yet: & # 39; As long as [Bentley] do not make one, we will continue. "
Although we did not speak much of Ares outside of their Tesla Model S car, the company under the guidance of ex-Lotus boss Dany Bahar has been busy during his four-year operation. Previous works include a Corvette Stingray Restomod from 1964, 53 Land Rover Defenders equipped with V8s and hardcore backcountry equipment, the carbon fiber bodywork Mercedes-AMG G63 X-Raid, a 964-series Porsche 911 Restomod, and those Tesla. The company says that the first two-wheeled offer will soon arrive, based on the BMW R nine T, together with a Ferrari GTC4 Lusso reworked to a Ferrari 412, and it has already built a prototype of a Porsche 911 GT3 RS Targa. The Lamborghini Huracán-based Project Panther, which is a modern De Tomaso Pantera, will be released soon.
Doing business at Ares is so good that the company says it will open two other studios next year with its current location in Los Angeles, one in Miami and one in Vegas in the spring. If you look at that Bentley Mulsanne coupe, it is not difficult to see where the success comes from.
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