Last Sunday’s Australian Top Gear special left us in awe. The sight of three expensive GT cars being hurled across the Australian landscape – from washboard dirt roads, through a quarry and then finally to one of the countries biggest farms – was simply amazing. The only thing more astonishing was the fact that they were all still working perfectly by the end. But what did they actually look like close up?
Photos have emerged of Richard Hammond’s Bentley Continental GT, spotted in the garage of a Brisbane automotive workshop. The Bentley’s bright yellow paintwork suffered from extensive stone chipping as a result of all the high-speed driving Top Gear undertook on rough Northern Territory roads. Apparently there was also significant under-body damage, most likely from the off-road driving performed on the farm for the cattle herding segment.
The end result? All of the Bentley’s damaged parts will be replaced, before the vehicle undergoes a complete body respray. It has also been suggested that it may have lost more than 50% of its original value. The Bentley easily looked to be in better condition when compared to Jeremy’s BMW M6 and James’ Nissan GT-R – so we’d hate to think what their repair bills might be.
The lesson here is even though the three cars “survived” the Australian outback, the condition in which they returned was a completely different story all together.
4 comments
Sure they were damaged, but they didn’t break in half after 1 or 2 days did they?
Hmm How Would you feel If it was your car
If it was my car, I wouldn’t do that to it in the first place
Predictable. The body and underbelly were a given. The same thing happened with the “budget” convertibles in Spain on the airport runway. Though I doubt the Bentley would go down in value, because, yes, it was damaged, but it was also a Top Gear ‘prop’ so that might add some value back.