Bentley continental gt extreme weight shedding
 

Anyone know approximately how much weight could be shed out of an early year bentley continental gt. I mean full strip down. Just a/c and bucket seats. I have a flying spur for a daily so please dont lecture me about "how they are gt cars". I am just curious about how light it could get if it was taken to the extreme.

I'd guess 600 pounds total... unless you REALLY strip it down and then maybe 1000 or so. Then you might need to corner weigh the car and rebalance her, etc. Did that with a Ferrari 308 many years ago that was tracked often.

You dont Think i could get rid of like 900 to 1000lbs if i gutted the back seats, headliner, stero, etc. Like really go to the extreme with it?

Back seats are probably 80 lbs and font passenger is probable 50 lbs. headliner is minimal. You have to think big like AC. Entire stereo might be good for 100 lbs or so. Why not start gutting her and weight the bits and post it all here. You could also redo the body in CF. So yeah,mustard gutting the car and let us know how much weight you reduced her by.

I plan on it, next year. Just bought a flying spur for a daily. Next year i plan on buying a new toy. I sold my viper, and i want to something wild and different. #Racecar
But I'll definitely make sure to catalog all progress.

Wild and different.... Ariel Atom. Buying a pig and lightening it is false economy imho. The suspension system to the Bentley is massive, and thus slow. Think Lotus, add lightness. JMHO.

I think Bentley M-Sport was able to pull that much weight out for the race car, but that included a completely different suspension (coilovers, not air springs) and rear-wheel drive setup.

My guess is that you could lose about 400-500 lbs. The GT3-R was down 220lbs with a lot of carbon paneling instead of wood. Maybe if you stripped all the sound deadening and stereo, you could get a couple hundred more pounds out.

I think if you took out the AC unit, gutted the interior you would be at 500lbs tops. Light weight rims, if you can do a coil over system instead of of the heavy air suspension...maybe another 50lbs...

The front seats (2005-06 weighed) weigh 90 LBS each (88.4 tbe), the door panels weigh 32 LBS each, and that is just the outer trim panel with wood trim, not the inner with speakers, module, window motor, ETC.


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....did you ever get on with blowing up the car...

I sold my Viper to get my GTC. I’m having a blast without the harshness of the Viper. I had Vipers for 20 years and they sure were fun!!

Reviving an old thread.
How did the weight reduction go. Any updates by any one who has lightened their gt?

I'm also interested in this subject. With 600HP, my CGT could become much quicker(and improve performance in every respect obviously) by dropping some significant weight. Also, I'm thinking it would help the suspension bushings last longer and fuel economy. I've stripped a couple other cars of weight and really enjoyed the result, but the CGT is a different animal. I'd like to do it in a way that didn't compromise the qualities that make the car special. If this means swiss cheesing A arms and the like then so be it. It may be that the juice isn't worth the squeeze, IDK, but it seems to me there's a lot of unnecessary bloat built into these cars.

For example, the trunk self closing mechanisms and computer, the needlessly complicated parking brake mechanism(servo's, computer etc), delete the headlight washers, IIRC there's washer fluid heaters? - that could go, replace the batteries with LiPo lightweight batteries, maybe simplify the heating and interior lighting systems. How much weight can be dumped by getting rid of the Cats and replacing them with an electronic simulator? Sure, ideally you'd start with a lotus, but I don't own a lotus and I love my CGT, so I'm thinking there's a fair bit of untapped stealthy performance lurking in these cars waiting to be unleashed. It could be a formidable sleeper, and a great deal more fun. I recognize that there's only so much that can be done, but more ideas about where to look for dead weight (without compromising the quiet and luxury) would be helpful.

I was talking to the Bentley Drivers Club Chairman about weight loss as I am going to compete in Time Attack with my car in the standard road class.
His GT is for racing and not time attack.
They stripped the car out, even grinding away all the unnecessary brackets and screw heads on the car .He managed to remove 350kg bringing the car weight down to 2000kg.
I think that includeing all ac components and ac pump.
The problem with that is the car is then only a race car. Everything that makes it special has been removed.
Seats, brake discs and calipers , standard wheels add up to a significant weight which have aftermarket alternatives available.

350Kg wow, that's really disappointing. I had hoped for something much closer to 1600Kg. It would be interesting to know if he was at all competitive with it and if so, which cars he's successfully competing against. Thank-you for the information, I appreciate you taking the time to reply.