Bentley is celebrating its 100th birthday, and to commemorate its long and storied history, they’ve written the whole thing down—yes, the British luxury marque’s just released a big book of stories about how it got where it is today, beginning with its inception in 1919. The Bentley Centenary Book is 800 pages and encompasses nine chapters about the famous brand. The foreword is by Ralph Lauren, while the chapters touch on subjects such as performance, design, craftsmanship, and its customers. The book also weighs some 30 kilograms and spans almost a metre across, when opened. Three versions of the book will be printed. The first is a basic’ edition which costs £3,000 pounds (about $5,100) and is limited to just 500 copies. The exterior is bound in the same leather used on Bentley vehicles in whatever colour you like, and sports a Bentley badge. Only 100 copies of the Mulliner version will be printed, at a cost of £12,500 each, or approximately $21,400. That extra cash gets you 10 portraits measuring 20-by-24-inches, each featuring an iconic Bentley, as well as 56 watercolour paintings. You also get a section of the front-left tire from the 2003 24 Hours of Le Mans-winning Bentley Speed 8, and a chance to have your car – provided it’s a Bentley – photographed and featured on special pages. The big boy is the Centenary Edition, which features 100 carats of diamonds and costs a whopping £200,000. That’s about $340,000, or almost $10,000 per kilogram. Only seven of the centenary edition will be printed, one for each continent. We’re confident if all seven owners ever get together, they will probably conjure W. O. Bentley’s ghost, who will tell them what the next 100 years will
Origin: This Bentley book costs more than an actual Bentley