PREVIEW

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Headline: Bentley Celebrates 100 Years With A Trio Of Luxury Books Including A Diamond Encrusted £200,000 Edition

Caption: Bentley Motors is celebrating one-hundred years with a trio of collectable books, including the world’s heaviest volume adorned with diamonds and priced at over £200,000. Collaborating with the publisher Opus, the limited “The Bentley Centenary Opus” tells the evocative story of this luxury carmaker. The 800 pages include classic Bentleys, the marque's Le Mans victories of the 1920s and the new generation of grand tourers, the crafted cars and limited edition models that maintain the prestige of the brand. The book includes the people, the makers, the creatives and the drivers who have collectively built and shaped Bentley. We also learn of the marque's future as it navigates the next one-hundred years. At almost a meter wide when opened, weighing approximately 30 kilos and printed in limited numbers, these publications are meant to be much more than simple coffee table books. The “Centenary Edition” is printed in 500 volumes at £3,000 ($3,800) per copy, whilst the “Mulliner Edition” is available in 100 copies priced at £12,500 ($16,000) a volume. Then the rarest of them all, the “100 Carat Edition”, will only see seven copies made and priced at £200,000 ($250,000) each. As expected, the book design is very special too. Created, printed and hand-bound by specialists in the UK, the leather hides are from the same sources as those used in Bentley models, whilst the “Bentley Wings” badge that adorns the front cover is an official hand-crafted emblem and the same as those on the “Centenary” model. What’s more, customers can choose their own hide color for the front cover of their edition. The publication starts with an introduction by fashion designer Ralph Lauren, followed by the story of the brand told in chapters divided into performance, design, rarity and craftsmanship, as well as innovation and extraordinary customers. In the final part, company chair Adrian Hallmark discusses Bentley's plans for the future. The books include never-seen-before imagery, rare historical content and photography, with special gatefold pages measuring some two-meters across. Highlights of the “Mulliner Edition” include giant 20 x 24-inch polaroid portraits to showcase 10 landmark Bentleys – the first time the world’s largest polaroid camera has been used to photograph motor cars - and a collection of 56 Bentley model watercolors commissioned for this project and individually painted on silk paper.

Keywords: feature,photo feature,photo story

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