Bentley keeps art of coachbuilding alive with Mulliner Bacalar

With the Geneva show canceled this year, manufacturers are left without a world stage to introduce their latest creations to a much enthused auidence. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology though, these same manufacturers are quick to scramble to the internet to reveal their wares all the same. In the case of Bentley, they’ve called for a gathering at their home base in Crewe, England to reveal their latest bespoke creation: The Bentley Mulliner Bacalar.

The first half of the name of this drop-top Bentley hails from the long-standing coach builder Mulliner; A company who has been literally building coaches for horse-drawn carriages since the early 1500s. The Mulliner Bacalar then is a coach-built creation from the same company, with only a total of twelve units to be made – each being highly tailored to their respective owners specificiations. The latter half of the name takes after Bentley’s parlance of naming cars after remarkable landmarks; In this case coming from Lake Bacalar in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.

While the underpinnings of the Mulliner Bacalar are based off the Continental GT, everything you see on the exterior is exclusively coach-built indeed. For starters, the Bacalar is exclusively an open-top barchetta, meaning there is no option to have a roof over its occupants. This gives the drop-top Bentley a svelte profile as it does away with the compromises of a rectracting roof mechanism.

The front fascia, while still predominantly occupied by the signature Bentley grille, has extra air dams on the side that give the front end a bit more aggression. The turn signals also shoot off the main headlamp housings off to the side – a bit of a concept car touch that’s appropriate for something this bespoke. The rear section can be highly distinguished by its speedster-like profile for the rump section, while one-off tail lamps are compressed into a thin recessed section of the rear bumper.

Propulsion comes by way of the same 6.0L W12 TSI found in the Continental GT, albeit this time pushing 659 PS towards all four wheels using a clever torque-split system that optimizes rear-wheel drive use.

Prices have not been revealed for the Bentley Bacalar, although it won’t matter all the same because all twelve units have been spoken for by clients from across the globe.