The Bugatti Veyron may be the world's fastest production car according to the Guinness Book of World Records, but the Molsheim-built supercar->ke177 is far from being the most powerful road-legal vehicle ever built.

The Hennessey Venom GT, for instance, is one of the very few machines that surpass the Veyron->ke1112 in terms of ponies. The American hypercar has no less than 1,244 horses pushing it from behind, while the Bugatti->ke16 benefits from "just" 1,200 horsepower. Then there's the amazing Koenigsegg One:1, a 1,340-horsepower packed vehicle that threatens to obliterate all production car records.

But the Swedish supercar is no match to the Bentley Continental GT that's ready to shake the Santa Pod raceway located in the United Kingdom this weekend. Don't let its GT configuration and luxurious status fool ya, this is no regular Continental GT, but a heavily modified that's hiding 3,124 horsepower under the hood.

As you might have already guessed, the GT is no longer sporting a Bentley->ke15 powerplant under the, but a Chevrolet-sourced, 10.2-liter, V-8 crate engine with twin turbochargers. It also features a strengthened steel body shell and a lightweight interior consisting of several carbon-fiber parts that reduce the car's overall weight.

Built in about eight months by a team of enthusiasts that spent in excess of $400,000 for the mods, the monstrous Bentley Continental GT will compete in the Street Eliminator class for road-legal vehicles, part of the FIA European Drag Racing->ke446 Championship.

Click past the jump to read more about the standard Bentley Continental GT.

Why It Matters

Dropping horsepower by the thousands in a drag racing machine isn't a new habit, but we'd expect to see these kind of figures attributed to a Challenger->ke249 or Mustang->ke428-based funny car, not a Bentley. However, the fact that the immense amount of power was injected into a luxurious GT build for comfort and handling makes this Continental a spectacular and unique project car. Needless to say, we're very anxious to see its wheels bend some asphalt and break the sound barrier on the quarter mile.

Interior

Nothing to see in here, but some carbon-fiber racing seats, a roll cage and some racing gauges. This thing is as bare-bones as they come.

Bentley Continental GT

Introduced in 2010, the Bentley Continental GT arrived in showrooms with a 6.9-liter W-12 engine under the hood. Motivated by 567 horsepower, the standard coupe might seem slow compared to the monster above, but it's quite a rocket in its class. More recently, Bentley launched the Continental GT Speed, which is propelled by 626 horsepower and 607 pound-feet of torque coming from an updated powerplant.