John Bowe drives a Bentley Continental GT Speed at 331km/h [video]
Australian racing legend, John Bowe, has driven a 2016 Bentley Continental GT Speed at 331km/h on a closed section of the derestricted Stuart Highway in the Northern Territory.
FOLLOWING ON FROM A series of global stunts, such as racing a train and, Bentley has handed the keys to a Bentley Continental GT Speed to Aussie racing legend, John Bowe, and asked him to hit its top speed of 206mph or 331km/h. Which he did. And on a closed section of the derestricted Stuart Highway in the Northern Territory.
It took Bowe just 76 seconds to hit 331km/h covering a distance of 9.4 kilometres in the process. When it was running at full speed, the 6.0-litre twin-turbo Grand Tourer was covering around 92 metres (or one football field) per second.
John Bowe said: “This isn’t a modified racecar; it’s a luxurious grand touring road car fresh off the production line. It took us a little over a minute to go from a standstill to 331km/h. That’s extraordinary. Even when you break through the 300km/h barrier, the GT Speed just keeps accelerating.”
At 331km/h (or Vmax) the Bentley Continental GT Speed was circulating 216 litres of coolant through its engine and radiator every minute, sucking in 4700 litres of air through its radiator every second and using two-thirds of its engine power just to overcome aerodynamic loads.
According to Bentley, the six-time Australian touring car and two-time Bathurst 1000 champion, John Bowe “was the perfect choice of driver for Bentley’s high-speed run in the ‘Red Centre’. He is also familiar with the Continental as he currently races a GT3 Down Under with Flying B Racing”.
The Stuart Highway covers a distance of 2834 kilometres from Darwin in the Northern Territory to Port Augusta, South Australia. In October 2013 the Territory Government announced a trial period of reverting to an open speed limit on a 200 kilometre stretch between Alice Springs and Barrow Creek.
