12-Cylinder Salute

Bentley makes 18 Continental GT-based Baturs as a send-off for its W-12.

- AUSTIN IRWIN

2024 BENTLEY BATUR 

Cryogenics might require a roomful of scientists in lab coats, but squeeze a $2.1 million Bentley Batur down the narrow lanes of Spain's Canary Islands, and you'll freeze every tourist and highway worker stiff. A Batur, designed to look like a resting predator, is a sight worth savoring. The two prototypes we drove through Tenerife for an afternoon are the start of a production run that ends after 18 are built. The Batur honors the end of Bentley's W-12 engine, and its design previews what the brand's forthcoming electric vehicles will look like.

The Batur's limited run makes other multimilliondollar machines-such as the 99 Pagani Utopias, the 130 Lotus Evijas, and the 300-unit Koenigsegg Gemera-look almost commonplace. And the Batur will be especially rare in the United States, where it's not street-legal. However, just because few people on the planet will ever see a Batur up close doesn't mean it's completely unique. Under the bespoke Mulliner coachwork, the Batur shares the majority of its mechanical bits with more attainable Bentleys, chiefly the Continental GT Speed. That includes the rear-biased allwheel-drive system, the active anti-roll bars, and the rearwheel-steering system.