It’s no secret that the past weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans race is a blue-chip event. But what about those who wish to enter such an endurance challenge on a grassroots level? Fortunately, America’s 24 Hours of Lemons series offers just that. However, YouTuber B Is For Build converting a Bentley Continental Supersports into a racecar for just $500—the theoretical Lemons budget cap—shows that, in this competition, it’s not just the fenders that gent bend, but also the rules and all for good fun!
The Lemons people have been racing all over the U.S. since 2006. And it’s worth noting that, despite the name, most 24 Hours of Lemons races are 14-15 hours long, spread across two days with an overnight break. Yes, there is one actual 24-hour race per year, which is scheduled for September 9-10, 2023 at the High Plains Raceway in Colorado.
The series’ $500 budget includes the base vehicle and any repairs or mods, but you can deduct some money by selling parts you don’t need for the battle. In addition, serious safety equipment like the brakes, wheels, and tires come extra, and these are just two ways to increase that budget.
When the judges evaluate the competing vehicles, there’s a Bullsh*t Factor—should they decide the build doesn’t fit the budget, an extra lap is removed from a team’s total run for each $10 over $500.
And since the American car community has its quirks, there are also loopholes, such as any Chrysler product with a Bentley body kit doesn’t have to fit the budget—who knew people love to see Bentley-impersonating Chryslers getting thrashed?
Bentley body swap for a BMW
This is where the genius of B Is For Build enters the stage. Over the years, the team, led by Chris Steinbacher, has stood true to its name by putting together creations like this mid-engined 1967 Ford Mustang that used to be a Bugatti movie car.
Sure, knowing a thing or two about body swaps helps, but you also need ingenuity. So B Is For Build decided to dive into the said loophole by fitting Bentley body parts to a Chrysler product (so far we’re within the Lemons rules), which was then mounted onto a BMW base car!
The team started out with an E92-generation BMW 335i coupe—an incredibly capable platform that’s old enough to fit a reasonable budget and yet fresh enough to remain competitive.
This 3 Series Coupe was sitting in their backyard, but they had to buy the Bentley, which is how they ended up grabbing a Hurricane Ian-flooded Continental Supersports. Apparently, the W12 engine and 8-speed automatic gearbox are still good (the electronics aren’t, though), but this is another story for another time.
For this project, B Is For Build removed the hood, trunk lid, all four fenders, both bumpers, as well as the headlights and taillights of the Continental. And, in all the points the Bentley bits are mounted to the BMW E92’s body, we find Chrysler wheel center caps… 38 of them.
For the giggles, the project also got a Chrysler V6 engine cover doing its best to conceal the BMW N54 3.0L straight-six, which had its twin turbos replaced with factory units lifted from a car with 70,000 miles on it. Still, you can expect more than the factory 302 hp to be sent to the rear wheels via the ZF 6HP six-speed automatic.
Of course, no such project would be complete without a Chrysler badge on the steering wheels-despite an impressive effort, Stellantis’ Peugeot team didn’t do so well at Le Mans in 2023, so at least there’s this.
One particular YouTube rivalry saw B Is For Build’s Bentley-BMW-Chrysler taking on another Bimmer, the E46 3 Series sedan of ChrisFix, in last weekend’s 24 Hours of Lemons at the New Jersey Motorsports Park.
And while the results weren’t in at the time of press (we hope the judges agreed with the YouTuber’s logic), you have to remember: Lemons is more about the giggles than anything else—here’s a Ferrari F40 replica with beer cans for headlights to back that up.
The rules of the actual Le Mans changed for 2023
Now, if this Lemons rule-bending sorcery sounds extreme, we have two things to tell you. For starters, during last weekend’s 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans race, Ferrari grabbed 1st place for its big 50-year return, sending Toyota to 2nd place after five years in which the Japanese carmaker dominated the top LMP1 (now Hypercar) class of the endurance race.
And some racing fans wonder if the podium was influenced by a last-minute change in the balance of performance that arguably affected Toyota’s cars more than those of the competition.
Then there’s the idea of turning an E92 BMW into a Bentley Continental-this generation of the 3 Series, which is now around 15 years old, has seen wackier transformations, such as this 335i-based Ford Shoebox that can beat the current M3 in the muscle department.
