MONTEREY, Calif.—Elsewhere on these pages, you can find our first track drive of the new Bentley Supersports. Shorn of its hybrid system and stripped back to rear-wheel drive, it's not only the most driver-focused Bentley we can remember, but it's also apparently the lightest car the company has made in 85 years. But you have to go back even further into the Bentley archive to find the first car to wear the Super Sports badge. And since Bentley had done just that, bringing along to Laguna Seca an example from the time, it would have been rude to refuse the offer of a ride.

Bentley built 18 Super Sports between 1925 and 1927, taking its standard 3 Litre model and shortening the wheelbase by 9.5 inches (241 mm). Like today's Super Sports, that shaved some mass and made it a more responsive driver's car. But a fast one, too. The radiator was more tapered and thus presented less resistance against the flow of air, although like many cars at the time, the bodywork was a matter of whichever coachbuilder the owner decided upon.

Like today with the Continental GT and the new Supersports, the 3.0 L engine Bentley in the original Super Sports was more special than one you'd find in the standard car, with new pistons, a lighter flywheel, more compression, and different carburetors. Together with its unique gearing, the factory would guarantee a Super Sports that could exceed 100 mph (160 km/h); the millions of Ford Model Ts that took the roads those same years were hard-pushed to break 40 mph (64 km/h).

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MONTEREY, Calif.—Last week, we brought news of the Bentley Torcal, a new electric vehicle that the luxury automaker has been cooking up at its HQ in Crewe, England. The company wants to attract new customers with its first battery EV, part of a plan to make sustainability as much a part of the brand's character as its high-end fit and finish. W12 engines have given way to V8 plug-in hybrid power, and the new Continental GT is all the better for it.

But around the same time as Ars got its first experience of that new PHEV two-door on a rather wet Spanish racetrack, some of Bentley's boffins were wondering what might happen if you also built one without the hybrid stuff.

Or all-wheel drive—something that has been a characteristic of every new road-going Bentley since the turn of the century. That would certainly cut the curb weight. So, too, would leaving out the rear seats. That sort of idea leads down a well-trodden path for some OEMs, and Porsche in particular is famous for making stripped-out road cars inspired by its race cars and making money from them, too.

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