Murcielago

Segment
Coupe

A new auction record has been set at this year's Goodwood Festival of Speed auction by a one of a kind Bentley with a strange name. It's called the Birkin 'Blower' Bentley and as its name suggests, there's a story behind it. The car sold (and pictured here) was owned by Sir Henry "Tim" Birkin, an ex-fighter pilot who was one of the 'Bentley Boys', a group made up of several young and wealthy British motorsport enthusiasts and drivers in the 1920s.

The single seat racing machine is powered by a 4.5-liter Supercharged 'Blower' engine. In 1932, Birkin set a record in the car of 137.96 mph at the Outer Circuit at Brooklands. He described the experience as hair-raising: "there are bumps which jolt the driver up and down in his seat and make the car leave the road and travel through the air." And some eight decades later, that car has now been sold at Bonham's Goodwood auction for a record £4.5 million. According to Bentley, this price surpasses a previous record of £2.8 million for a Bentley Speed Six at the Le Mans Classic in 2004.