- Here’s something unexpected: a group of Bentleys performing rally car duties.
- The one-day event was held in Dirtfish, and it wasn’t just Bentayga SUVs getting their flanks dirty.
- It turns out that that well-engineered turbo engine and all-wheel drive work great at shredding gravel.
Bentley has spent decades carefully polishing its genteel image, so that just seeing the ‘Flying B’ ornament on the bonnet conjures up images of tweedy jackets and expensive leather boots, a large and well-staffed stately home in the English countryside, a life of ease and pleasure and black Labrador retrievers. You probably wouldn’t expect a Bentley to end up sideways on the sand, but buckle up and get ready for a Scandi flick Downton Abbey.
With apologies to Walt Disney, welcome to the most magical place on earth: a disused former sawmill in perpetually humid Snoqualmie, Washington. Here, in the building used as the sheriff’s office Twin peaks, It’s home to the headquarters of DirtFish, a rally driving school founded in 2010. If you’ve never driven on gravel, put it on your to-do list for 2026, because it’s pretty much the most fun you can have on four wheels.
DirtFish’s main instructional vehicles are Subarus: WRX STIs for learning maximum grip techniques, and BRZs for throttle drifting. Normally there isn’t much overlap between a Subie and something like a leather-clad Continental GT convertible, but the big British powerhouse does come with all-wheel drive and turbo power. And even the most delicately stitched Wellington boots were always meant to get muddy.
So one day at DirtFish, a call came from the Fields Auto dealer group, which includes luxury brands including McLaren, Rolls-Royce and Bugatti. The idea was simple: bring some customers from Bentley’s Seattle location to the track and show them what powertrain development could mean in a low-traction environment.
“When Chloe called me and said, ‘We want to put Bentleys on gravel,’ I thought it was a joke. An early April Fool’s joke? But no. She was very serious,” says Josie Rimmer, Dirtfish’s chief strategy officer. “By collecting that car, I completely redefined a luxury car.”
Seeing a bunch of Bentaygas going at it through the trees with cheerful DirtFish instructors at the helm, spewing gravel like sprung Euro-hatch WRC cars, brings a whole new appreciation for the brand. And big Bentley coupes and convertibles that slide completely over the gravel? Talk about your continental drift. The cars even impressed DirtFish’s well-seasoned instructors.
“Just six days before the Bentleys, our instructors were testing a Rally3 Ford Fiesta on the same course,” said instructor and brand head Brenten Kelly. “We haven’t timed anything for a direct comparison, but the Bentley Continental GTC was more impressive than I expected. Power is one thing, but the handling really stood out, and the steering in sport mode allows you to do really long slides on gravel with the traction control turned off.”
Chances are, these vehicles will be carefully washed and waxed and will not encounter anything more stressful than a Seattle freeway ramp for the rest of their lives. But for one day they were actually allowed to get in the mud and wrestle. You’d have to think people like Woolf Barnato, the original Bentley Boy, would approve.
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Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, BC, Canada. He grew up on British cars, came of age in the golden age of Japanese sports compact performance, and started writing about cars and people in 2008. His special interest is in the intersection between man and machine, whether it concerns the racing career of Walter Cronkite or the half-century-long obsession of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to constantly buy Hot Wheels.
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