Over a decade ago, Bentley took the name Bentayga from the towering rock formation in the Canary Islands. Now the British car brand seeks to return to that origin with the Bentayga Artenara Edition, a car that feels less like a new chapter and more like a homecoming.

Named after the village in Gran Canaria that overlooks the Roque Bentayga pinnacle, this vehicle is an exercise in deliberate curation. ‘Naming this edition after Artenara closes a symbolic circle as it honours the very place that gave Bentayga its identity,’ says Product Communications Manager at Bentley, Jonathan Smedley. ‘It is a return to the summit where inspiration began and a bold reminder that true luxury is shaped by both destination and the journey,’ he adds.

Externally, the Bentayga Artenara Edition is distinguished by Mulliner design touches, including 22-inch wheels and the brand's signature double diamond grille. The overall silhouette feels cohesive and uncluttered, with visual noise stripped back to let the vehicle's form speak. ‘This new special edition captures some of the best design features of Bentayga,’ says Smedley.

While the Bentayga Artenara Edition is available in over 100 colours, Bentley’s in-house design team has refined the selection into eight curated specifications, each thoughtfully pairing exterior finishes with complementary interior palettes. Inside, the vehicle features a tri-colour interior scheme, previously exclusive to Mulliner extended-wheelbase models.

‘The Artenara Edition offers greater access to quality craftsmanship,’ Smedley notes. Inside, customers can choose from Bentley’s full range of veneers, including high-gloss, open-pore, and piano-painted gloss finishes in a variety of colours. For a more distinctive look, options such as Carbon Fibre and Dark Tint Aluminium are also available.

However, the most distinctive design element is the Roque Bentayga Mountain motif, which runs through the entire vehicle. ‘Here the rugged mountain topography surrounding the village of Artenara on Gran Canaria is celebrated,’ explains Smedley.

Etched into the fascia, perforated into the seat upholstery, and projected through the welcome lighting, this feature serves as a unifying element. It references the geographical origins of the Bentayga name while reinforcing the idea that luxury can be rooted in narrative as much as material.

‘The precise longitude and latitude coordinates of Roque Bentayga are engraved on the fascia, anchoring the car both literally and visually to its namesake summit,’ says Smedley. This level of detail highlights Bentley’s broader move toward more intricate design features. A recent example of this is the car manufactures collaboration with British jeweller Boodles, which introduced hand crafted jewellery-inspired elements into two custom Bentley specifications.

Available as a standard-wheelbase, the Bentayga Artenara Edition comes in a twin-turbocharged V8 engine, a V6 hybrid powertrain, or as a V8 extended-wheelbase vehicle. The V8 engine can take you from 0-60 mph in as little as 4.4 seconds and has a top speed of 178 mph. Meanwhile, the hybrid option offers a top speed of 158 mph.

Ultimately, the Bentayga’s new special edition is more about refining what already exists than introducing entirely new features. In returning to the landscape that first inspired the Bentayga's name, Bentley has created a vehicle that feels quietly confident while still exuding luxury.

For enquiries about the Bentley Bentayga Artenara Edition, visit BentleyMotors.com, @BentleyMotors

When reading about a super luxury conveyance such as the Bentley Continental GT Azure, one expects to find prose heavy with superlatives and over-stuffed with anecdotal insight into what makes this such a successfully sybaritic experience.

These days, the GT range is very much Bentley’s bread and butter, a model with a broad bandwidth of capabilities and configurations. The Crewe-based company, part of the Volkswagen Group, leans hard and forcefully into the infinite realm of personalisation, and the GT is no exception.

Right now, the GT is available in five distinct flavours, ‘basic’, Mulliner, Speed, S and Azure, as well as the occasional special edition like the Supersports and the choice between coupé and GTC convertible. The options list is practically infinite, especially if you’re willing to engage Bentley’s Mulliner division to ramp up the depth, scope and duration of the commissioning process.

Bentley Continental GT Azure, the ‘wellness spec’

We recently took temporary delivery of a GT Azure, considered by Bentley to be the ‘wellness specification’ thanks to an increased emphasis on luxury and comfort instead of dynamism and performance. These differences are, in many ways, subtle, relying on insider knowledge and experience as well as the gentle power of suggestion. Azure conjures up sparkling seas, cloudless Mediterranean skies and a life of leisure, not south London in the depths of a wet winter.

Still, the cabin is a remarkable place to be, regardless of the specification. The model shown here, with its Light Windsor Blue coachwork and cream leather interior gives off quite different vibes to the duo-tone Burnt Oak leather and Open Pore Crown Cut Walnut veneer of the test car, which was resplendent in a seasonal Cricket Ball deep red. Gloss-black 22-inch wheels were another modern choice, but as the illustrations show, if you go in a more classical direction, the Azure is one of the best-looking of all GT variants.

Partly this is due to the timeless combination of blue coachwork and silver brightwork. The Azure has a unique and distinctive grille featuring bold vertical elements, although this jars slightly with the mesh covered the broad air intakes below it and beneath the headlights.

The relatively simple forms make the most of the new style headlights, introduced with the current generation of GT to move away from the twin headlight approach of the earlier cars. The subtle creases and folds in the GT’s flanks are also better served by a light colour that allows the references to earlier post-war models to really shine through.

Inside, the degrees of difference between a Speed, S and Azure model are harder to quantify for the unfamiliar. The car’s drive systems are marginally softer and less aggressive than in the more punchily tuned performance models but make no mistake whatsoever – this is still an extremely capable and fast machine.

It’s true that the headline statistic – a top speed of 168 mph – seems wildly off the pace when compared to the Speed, which adds another 100bhp to the Azure’s 671bhp and can achieve an otherworldly 208 mph.

For those that care passionately about the numbers, perhaps the Azure feels lacking. In the real world, it matters not one jot. The sprint time set by this four-wheeled wellness wonder – 3.5 seconds to 62mph – is more than respectable given that the Speed can only best that by 0.4 seconds.

If you’re that concerned about chasing down this imperceptible fraction then you’re almost certainly not on a path to self-fulfilment. Far better to just enjoy the ride. The GT has always handled in a way that belies its scale and newer generations have got better and better in the way they feel planted, supple and dynamically capable.

In any case, it’s not really a car to throw about. Instead, it’s best to revel in what the Azure does best – long-distance, high-comfort travel. Like all GTs it combines a V8 with a high-performance hybrid system. The latter is good for 40-50 miles of pure electric travel, with the V8 capable of coming to life quietly and unobtrusively when needed. Given the heft and scale of the GT, the added weight of such a system is negligible; in a car such as this, it really does provide the best of both worlds.

Bentley’s approach to dashboard design has also aged extremely well, with a modest touchscreen comprehensively outflanked by an array of tactile, hand-finished buttons, dials, stalks and ‘organ stop’ style ventilation controls. We’d wager that the LoveFrom team took a close look at Bentley’s approach when fashioning the dashboard of the forthcoming Ferrari Luce, an object lesson in how to preserve heritage and tradition without compromising on function and technology.

So is the Azure a soft option in the hard-nosed world of luxury bragging rights? Perhaps. But it’s also a welcome demonstration that not everything has to be dialled up to the max, all the time, to signify status. Spot an Azure in the wild and more likely than not, you’re seeing self-assurance in action.

Bentley Continental GT Azure, price as tested £244,300, BentleyMotors.com, @BentleyMotors

An industrial estate in Salisbury, UK, is an unexpected place to find a purveyor of premium audio. It’s even more unexpected to see a small shed set up for the sole purpose of building, shaping and tuning the audio capabilities of Bentley’s current line-up. This is Naim Audio, a longstanding British hi-fi brand that combines hand-built, high-end components with a sideline in elegant standalone systems – including the Mu-so wireless speaker, now in its second generation – and responsibility for making Bentleys sound so good, inside and out.

Since 2011, Naim has been part of the French audio group Focal, a partnership that has given the cult manufacturer a much larger stage. It also builds on the ongoing collaboration with Bentley, one that began in 2005 thanks to a Naim system-owning Bentley executive reaching out to the manufacturer.

I recently visited Naim Audio’s facility, tucked away amongst big-box discount stores and car dealerships, to see the company’s wares being made and hear them being played, both in situ in the dedicated Naim listening room and in the relatively cramped confines (with four on board) of a Bentley Continental GT.

A team of around 150 people work for Naim in this facility, building each and every one of the premium components from scratch (all-in-one systems are subcontracted to another manufacturing facility). Although standalone components and all-in-one systems are very different animals, there's also the additional complexities of designing for a car interior. Bentley had previously worked with Sony, but the move to Naim was inspired in part by Aston Martin’s then collaboration with Linn, one of the earliest examples of a specialist hi-fi manufacturer working on in-car audio system. Bentley wanted to go one better.

Naim’s flagship home audio system is the Statement, a mighty and monolithic pre- and power amp that’s aimed at audiophiles who demand only the very, very best. Comprising the NAC S1 preamplifier and twin NAP S1 mono power amplifiers (speakers are extra), Statement reads as three vertical slabs, shaped to aid the conduction of air over the heat sink, with the power supply in the base of the unit and shielded electronics above.

The side-mounted heat sinks are milled from solid billets of aluminium, which is subsequently hand polished to achieve the wave-like forms that flank the unit. With a combined weight of over 260kg and a price that’ll easily exceed a quarter of a million pounds once you’ve invested in speakers, turntable, etc, this is a truly solid investment for serious music lovers. Buyers also get a specialist installation from Naim’s own team, as well as a set of custom flight cases for storage and movement of the unit.

This attention to detail can be traced back to the company’s origins. Naim Audio Visual was founded by the engineer Julian Vereker in 1969, building on his experience with recording and mixing live music. Vereker (1945-2000) was soon building his own bespoke amplifiers in a search for the perfect reproduction of a recording; he won a contract to supply the nascent Capital Radio in London with equipment.

Naim Audio came along in 1973, setting up in an ancient shop in the heart of medieval Salisbury. Around this time, Vereker found a like-minded audiophile in Ivor Tiefenbrun, whose company Linn was making acclaimed turntables. Both recommended each other to buyers and together, a Linn and a Naim proved an unbeatable combination.

Understandably, this level of technical perfection and expense is never going to result in a disposable product. Naim proudly services practically every model it has ever made, going all the way back to the early 1970s. ‘We do what we do because we love listening to music at home,’ is an oft-heard refrain on the factory floor.

Naim builds a number of its own components and tests sub-contracted supplies rigorously, rejecting all but the very best. Statement is soak tested – switched on and off – for a 24-hour period, as well as play for a week before being signed off.

In 1991, Naim moved into CD players with its CDS model, going so far as to release its own series of albums on the Naim Label to provide a sufficient quality benchmark.

High-end audio is often characterised by such extreme attention to detail, and during the installation process, Naim’s team will strive to get the best placement for your new equipment. Empty rooms cause problems, while elements like books, records, rugs, and curtains all help create a neutral acoustic canvas.

For long, narrow rooms, you’re better off ‘firing’ the speakers across the width of the room, aimed at a hard wall to reflect the sound. Don’t place your speakers too close to the wall or else it will confuse the depth of the soundstage. Modern digital processing allows speakers to correct these errors – such as the Naim-powered Diva Utopia from Focal – but generally the less error correction the better.

Each Statement system takes two people one month to build. Although it makes its components from the ground up, Naim is adamant that it’s not necessarily an innovator, but a perfector. ‘We make CD or streaming work better,’ they say, adding simply, ‘we add value’. Sometimes, that quest for perfection errs on the eccentric, like the machine the company has created to hang up audio cables and give them a good shake. Apparently, if you do this to a connector cable around 150 times, it sounds audibly better, yet no one quite knows why – as the company readily admits.

The difference between excellent and exceptional audio quality goes beyond the emotional appreciation of audio. Companies like Naim operate in a rarefied space where intangible percentages differ from one listener to another. The more knowledge you have – whether it’s about acoustics, electronics or the recording process – the more expensive it becomes to accommodate and corroborate every facet of your understanding. Ignorance isn’t necessarily bliss, but it is cheaper. Naim’s offering is clearly addictive. Those who immerse themselves in Naim’s audio world find a combination of quality, support and beautifully designed products that will accompany them throughout their lives.

There’s another type of Naim owner, someone who might not think of the small Salisbury company in quite the same way. These people are Bentley drivers. The current generation Bentley Continental GT Speed contains no fewer than 20 speaker drivers with 2,200W of power. Two of those drivers sit beneath the plush leather seats to add serious vibrations to your soundtrack.

A Bentley interior, whether it’s the Continental GT, Flying Spur or Bentayga, is a richly cossetting environment in which to listen to music, plus they all cost slightly less than a Naim Statement. Big spenders might want to look at the seriously impressive system in the £1.6m Bentley Batur or even the Pininfarina Battista, both of which incorporate bespoke Naim systems. Naim also supplies the systems you’ll find aboard Princess Yachts.

But what does it all sound like? Sitting back in the soft chairs of the listening room, Naim’s team put the Statement through its paces. Naim says that many customers end up obsessed with relistening to music they know well, discovering new facets and aspects of a recording that might have been lost to lesser equipment.

It’s harder to gauge how you feel when presented with a piece you’ve never heard before – what you hear first is production quality and musicianship, rather than emotion or memory. The texture and depth of the instruments is remarkable, however, and the sense of being in the room with the performance is unmatched. Nevertheless, I can’t help but feel that there’s a disconnect between the endless quest for audiophile perfection and the often messy, imperfect brilliance of a favourite piece of music. Can two such disparate things ever be reconciled?

A Naim Statement system costs from £234,997, more information at

NaimAudio.com, @NaimAudio

Off the back of Bentley’s recent launch of the new Bentayga Speed – which took place in Montana – the British marque chose to hang on in the Big Sky state and showcase the rest of its range. This ‘Range at the Ranch’ programme was an opportunity to roll out the latest model-year updates – in trim, tech and power – across the Continental GT, Continental GT Convertible and Flying Spur models.

True to the promise of a more varied and choice-filled range, the company has effectively doubled its output with the introduction of a High Performance Hybrid option across the entire range. Aside from the aforementioned Bentayga Speed, the whole of Bentley’s core range is now hybridised, pairing a V8 with a plug-in system for the best of both worlds. The HPH variant has a combined output of 680 PS and slots in below the 782 PS Ultra Performance Hybrid unit that came along last year.

After a day of long-distance, high-speed driving across Montana’s varied and wonderful wilderness, I got the chance to sample each of the new arrivals, thoughtfully lined up for us outside the log-cabin-on-steroids that is the Montage Big Sky hotel, about 50km south of Bozeman. Once over the candy-coloured selection, which included a rather seductive Flying Spur in Cumbrian Green over Opalite and a shimmering Cricket Ball Satin GT, it was time to put in a few laps of the locality. In reality, this meant dodging the construction traffic as the high-end Big Sky Mountain Village development continues to expand.

As a result, it was rather a sedate drive, a chance to marvel at the evolution of the mountain-side McMansion, as well as the almost total domination of the full-size SUV and pick-up truck on the state’s roads. In comparison, even the mighty Flying Spur saloon comes across as somewhat small and svelte.

As it happened, the Flying Spur was my first choice, an example finished in Cumbrian Green over Opalite (the duo tone paintwork is a £22,000 Mulliner ‘Personal Commission’ extra). The interior, with its dark walnut veneer, also didn’t disappoint, reaffirming Bentley’s mastery of cabin design. Few cars synthesise digital dashboards with physical controls with such elegance, although the limitless trim and colour options need careful design guidance if they’re to stay within the realms of good taste.

Outside, the Flying Spur retains the double headlight arrangement recently forsaken by the GT. As a result, the Spur looks a little bit more traditional than its sportier two-door sibling. To be honest, I prefer this original lighting arrangement over the Batur-inspired front end of the GT and GTC, even though the rest of these cars is pretty much unimpeachable.

With the new High Performance Hybrid system, this stately limousine can hit 60mph in just 3.8 seconds, thanks to the combined shove of V8 and electrons. It’s whisper quiet too, with an ambience and practicality that makes one wish to be a titan of industry swanning between HQ, penthouse and private jet. Almost.

Ride and steering belie the heft of these large cars (despite the scale of everything else on the road), thanks in part to the long list of tech that includes rear steering, air suspension, and active anti-roll bars. Point any one of these machines into a corner at speed and the electronic tussle swiftly and imperceptibly with the laws of physics, ensuring you come out the other side without breaking a sweat.

In contrast to the Flying Spur's discreet dispensation of velocity, the GT and GTC present themselves as the more personal, sporting options. There’s still a clear difference between variants, from the ‘basic’ car to the performance-focused Speed and the more luxurious Azure and Mulliner models, but in truth they all operate within a pretty narrow bandwidth. No one is going to feel especially short-changed by the differences.

It also means that the ‘base’ model – a rather inappropriate term for a Bentley – is practically all the car you’ll ever need. The mechanical differences are a question of tuning, not components, each weighs in about the same, and you’ll need to splash out for notable options like the Naim-powered audio (£7,000+) and the beautiful rotating display (£5,000+).

Ultimately, despite the impressive reserves of power and performance on offer, one of the most notable aspects of the latest crop of Bentley’s is the EV-only range. At around 50 miles, it’s more than capable of providing zero emission day-to-day driving (the average distance of a UK car journey is around 19 miles), whilst the ability to charge up the battery whilst on the move makes it easy to switch to EV mode when you enter a city or low emission zone.

Is this electrification by stealth? Bentley was one of the first manufacturers to make a big commitment to EVs, a promise that has been lightly rolled back in the face of economic and geopolitical uncertainty. What we do know for certain is that the first pure electric Bentley will surface next year and that it won’t simply be an electrified version of a current model. For the time being, Bentley continues to make a solid case for the supremacy of the luxury hybrid.

BentleyMotors.com, @BentleyMotors

For a car that was launched to more than the usual amount of criticism for its looks, the Bentley Bentayga has weathered the years rather better than most. A major facelift in 2020 tweaked the most egregious elements of the original 2015 design and the company has continued to nip and tuck its SUV to keep apace of its rivals, both in terms of performance and plushness. The latter has been taken care of by the Mulliner spec cars, whilst the former quest continues with this, the first Bentley Bentayga Speed of the new generation.

While the car's key rivals, the Ferrari Purosangue and Aston Martin DBX S, seem to be locked into a rather puerile horsepower war that taps into the top trump ethos of conspicuous consumption. For performance cars, it's all about the power, just as yacht owners duel over length and skyscraper builders bicker about height. Twas ever thus, and thus 'twill ever be.

Bentley has chosen the Montana to debut the Speed, reasoning that the state’s blend of open vistas, sweeping roads and upscale outdoorsy lifestyle is a fine match for the car’s abilities. The state’s landscape is famously fabulous, open skies above a carpet of dramatic snow-topped peaks, pine-encrusted slopes and broad river basins. Some 28,000 ranches are scattered across this territory, the size of Germany yet with just over 1% of the population.

Aside from a few major cities (the largest has a population of just 120,000), the ‘densest’ parts of the state are where golf courses, hotels, ski runs, generous mansions and associated services cluster in amongst the deep folds of the landscape. Big plots, big trees and big contours effectively cloaks all this rather suburban infrastructure, giving the impression of one vast open wilderness.

Montana isn’t just Surrey with bears, however. Despite the picture-perfect vistas and big, big skies, it’s also becoming one of the best places to be a wealthy outdoorsman, whether it’s owning a vanity ranch, having a passion expensive skiwear, taking the $35m penthouse in the Montage Big Sky hotel, or simply strutting around in a Stetson and cowboy boots. Perhaps this is why Bentley picked the latter hotel to host the launch event, a place where the luxury SUV’s incongruous blend of wealth and utility feels right at home.

It's notable that this new Speed model, the first high-performance variant of the company’s evergreen SUV to be fitted with a twin-turbo V8, rather than the mighty-but-obsolete W12 engine found in the first-generation car. The other point to note is that this particular Bentley is now the lonesome ICE machine in the range. All its other models, the GT, GTC and Flying Spur, are available in a variety of trims and specs but always with a plug-in hybrid powertrain. It therefore feels a little weird to be driving a brand new 2026 model year car that eschews any and all forms of electrification.

Stripping out the 17.3 kWh battery from the hybrid Bentaygas might save a bit of weight but given that a lightweight SUV is something of an oxymoron (like 'ethical AI'), the real story here is the power. In V8 form, Bentayga Speed comfortably outperforms its W12 antecedent in every metric.

There’s a launch control mode to help you reach that magic 60mph number is just 3.4 seconds, whilst top speed is a DBX S-matching 193mph. Do not attempt this in Montana, however tempting it might be. If the state troopers don’t get you, the wildlife almost certainly will. Even the roar of the optional sports exhaust probably won’t give anything time to get out of the way.

There are subtle updates to the styling too, but they’re confined to elements like dark coloured brightware, a black roof, grey taillights, a pinstripe side detail and Speed badging. If you want a truly lairy Bentley, you only have two options; go to an aftermarket supplier to get a decidedly unofficial body kit or engage with Bentley’s own Mulliner department and have sufficient strength of character to be able to throw taste and caution to the wind.

We’ve noted before how Rolls-Royce is becoming bolder and bolder when it comes to specifying its press fleet, mindful that many owners think contrasting colours are de rigueur. Bentley is taking a similar tack, hence the slashes of lime green and electric blue scattered around the beautifully trimmed cabins of these cars.

Palettes aside, a Bentley is still an exceptional place to sit, especially in the back of the LWB car. The Speed isn’t quite as big as that, but at 5.1m and nearly 2.5 tonnes, it’s akin to having a lavishly upholstered space rocket.

To earn that Speed badge, every setting has been dialled up just a little bit more than usual – more exhaust noise, stiffer dampers, more freedom from the ESC and snappier gearchanges. We got the opportunity to sample plenty of highway miles as well as a short off-road(ish) diversion through the backroads of an amenable local ranch.

On gravel and grass all that power is a very different proposition, especially if you relieve the ESC of its reins and allow the hefty Bentayga to slide about a bit. It feels a bit perverse to say it, given the location, but a bit more space would have been welcome to truly explore the limits, rather than a narrow track adjoining a steep drop down into the valley.

Bragging rights duly won, most Bentayga Speeds will end up as everyday transport through cities, towns and villages, with perhaps the odd horsebox or speedboat getting an effortless tow. Buyers who really care about driving will doubtless own another car or two to scratch that itch, but perhaps the best thing about the Bentayga Speed is that when they switch back to the high-riding, leather-trimmed serenity of its cockpit, they won’t feel they’re a million miles away, dynamically.

Anachronisms usually have their admirers, in thrall to qualities that others have chosen to dispense with (usually for practical reasons). The Bentley Bentayga Speed isn’t exactly forbidden fruit, given the endless back and forth over EV legislation, tariffs and quotas, but it is a bold statement, visually, acoustically and politically. That such a competent and likeable machine can still surface amidst a cultural landscape of such infinite complexity is a minor triumph for the brand.

Bentley Bentayga Speed, from £219,000, BentleyMotors.com, @BentleyMotors

An ode to affordable furniture

Nick Vinson, Contributing Editor

This week was pretty special. After lunch with artist Dame Rachel Whiteread to celebrate the launch of her collection for Puiforcat Silver Set 2025 (more about that in a future issue of Wallpaper*), I headed to Antwerp for dinner with Inditex chair Marta Ortega Pérez and Vincent Van Duysen at the architect’s home to mark the launch of his fourth collection for Zara Home. Van Duysen filled his home with pieces from the collection, including rugs, sofas, tables, a desk, lamps and some fabulous cream-coloured carpets, and the garden with the outdoor collection. It’s good to see the brand hiring original talent and creating quality products with enduring appeal, and Van Duysen should be proud of this line of more ‘democratic’ and ‘accessible' furniture than that in his Italian collections. I have to admit I was slightly sceptical as I am not at all familiar with Zara Home, but instead was suitably impressed; there is a need for quality at a better price and design that will stand the test of time.

A Brooklyn food tour

Anna Solomon, Digital Staff Writer

A trip to manic Manhattan, which entailed as much sight-seeing as could be fitted into five days, ended with a much-needed escape to Brooklyn to visit a couple of friends with a knack for sniffing out great restaurants that have not yet been ravaged by a New Yorker review. Kellogg’s Diner in Williamsburg was their answer to my unimaginative demand for this quintessential American experience – a 24-hour spot originally opened in 1928 but taken over by chefs Jackie Carnesi and Amanda Perdomo at the end of last year. Now, obligatory pancakes sit comfortably alongside Tex-Mex at a bafflingly reasonable price point, among decor that tastefully reinterprets retro Americana. Beloved bistro Bar Tabac is an antique-filled slice of France in Cobble Hill, with live jazz and a chocolate fondant that will change your life, while Liar Liar, a natural wine bar in Gowanus (The New Yorker did get to that one), will serve you a fantastic steak frites and bottle of red at a price point that is, again, double take-inducing if you’ve come from Manhattan.

A moon-inspired omakase

Ellie Stathaki, Architecture and Environment Director

An evening at Luna Omakase in the City of London had me fall in love with this traditional Japanese feast all over again – ‘omakase’ loosely translates to ‘I leave it up to you’, and it's often a multi-course set menu prepared in front of you by an expert chef. The younger sibling of Juno Omakase, Luna is tucked away within Los Mochis in Liverpool Street and, just like its peer, offers a delicious, theatrical and immersive dining experience. Luna's concept is centred around the moon cycles; the number 12, symbolising the moon's journey throughout the year, informs the number of guests at any one sitting, the dishes served, the artworks in the room, and more. Executive chef Leonard Tanyag and his team have created a dining journey that nods to more traditional Japanese omakase (compared with Juno's Mexican-Japanese fusion) – there is mouthwatering nigiri (seafood, fish and melt-in-the-mouth wagyu), creative uses of wasabi, and contemporary interpretations of Japanese snacks and sandwiches. The flavours were strong, as my sitting aligned with June's 'strawberry' full moon, and the chef’s informative explanations for each dish made for a convivial atmosphere. Coming with bespoke sake pairings, it was a meal I truly savoured.

A techy trip

Jonathan Bell, Transport and Technology Editor

A busy week that involved not one but two trips to the US, starting with a visit to Big Sky, Montana, to sample Bentley's revised and updated model range, before heading to California (via London) to Apple's WWDC25. It was my first time at Apple Park and the experience didn't disappoint, with Foster + Partners’ stunning architecture – including the new Observatory – standing up to very close scrutiny. The attention to design detail was mind-blowing, appropriately enough for a company devoted to pixel-perfect perfection.

A music-infused anniversary

Charlotte Gunn, Director of Digital Content

I spent a fabulous evening celebrating 150 years of Audemars Piguet in London on Wednesday. Along with a dinner from Michelin-starred chefs Jeremy Chan and Sven Wassmer, the haute horologie brand had a surprise in store. As an extension of their AP x Music programme, they paired Mark Ronson and Raye together to record an original song. The result is ‘Suzanne’, a joy-filled summer anthem, and much to guests' delight, the pair appeared to perform the song.

A garden-inspired tea

Sofia de la Cruz, Travel Editor

I recently enjoyed a soothing and delicious afternoon tea at Jumeirah Carlton Tower, celebrating the launch of a new partnership with Cadogan Gardens in Knightsbridge – a private, verdant enclave in front of the property, home to over 5,000 diverse plants. The flavours and aromas of traditional English gardens were beautifully reflected in delicate pâtisseries, including an indulgent lavender chocolate barquette and a comforting strawberry honeycomb tart. Classical music played softly in the background set the mood perfectly.

A very east London summer party

Anne Soward, Production Editor

This week, I attended the Museum of the Home’s summer party, which celebrates the incredible work that the east London museum does over the year. It was a beautiful warm evening to be out in its stunning walled garden (actually a series of ‘garden rooms’ that chart the evolution of the English urban garden through the centuries), where we were treated to performances from Yuko Tsubame – who accompanies her Japanese folk songs infused with punk with the sounds of a sanshin, a traditional three-stringed instrument – and taiko drummer Akinori Fujimoto. Inside, we were able to get a private view of images from the World Food Photography Awards that explore the connections between home and food, which tied in nicely with the delectable morsels being plated around the party, including vegan spring rolls from local Vietnamese Sen Viet and mini bagels from Daniel’s. A DJ set from Minuscule of Sound rounded off the evening.

Jewels in Japan

Hannah Silver, Art, Culture, Watches and Jewellery Editor

This week I celebrated the launch of Chanel's beautiful new high jewellery collection, Reach for the Stars, in Kyoto. It was a joy to discover the collection, see some very special sights and enjoy lots of good food. The trip culminated with a spectacular dinner at Shogunzuka Seiryuden, complete with a drone light show, drawing Gabrielle Chanel’s favourite motifs in the sky.

Furnishings from Bentley Home and cars from Bentley Motors have a couple of things in common: the brand’s homeware, which is created in collaboration with Luxury Living Group in Forli, Italy, echoes the clean lines and extreme curves of the classic marque, which operates out of Crewe in the UK. Both espouse a quiet confidence that comes from operating under the banner of Bentley: ‘We talk about potency – an implied strength and performance,’ says Ben Saltmer, product and lifestyle design manager for the brand’s design division.

Although ‘the Bentley Home customer and the Bentley customer have an appreciation of the finest materials and design’, Saltmer ‘[doesn’t] necessarily think that Bentley Home only appeals to those who have a Bentley’. This becomes apparent as you enter Bentley Home’s Milan atelier, which has been opened for Milan Design Week 2025 to showcase its new collections, which include new interior furniture and accessories and the brand’s debut picnic collection.

Four new furniture pieces include the ‘Fenton’ table, which is aerodynamic with a double-layered top. The ‘Ashford’ modular sofa features a wooden base, leather cushions and an integrated coffee table, and is a good example of the ‘simple, confident structure’ of Bentley Home designs, according to Saltmer. The ‘Verve’ coffee tables are characterised by their floating curved glass tops, while the ‘Linden’ multifunctional unit is highly versatile, serving at once as a bookcase, storage unit and vanity desk. These pieces are fully customisable, with a wide range of finish options and product configurations, in keeping with the luxury market’s demand for exclusivity.

Bentley Home’s expanded accessories collection includes the ‘Bexley’ service tray, a leather-covered wooden tray with Desmond diamond stitching; the ‘Desmond’ vase, a Murano glass vase featuring the same pattern; the ‘Elan’ leather home bag, a storage bag made of leather and silk; the leather-wrapped ‘Elan’ bottle holder; and the ‘Cove’ basket, an indoor storage basket emblazoned with the Desmond motif.

This grown-up collection is a study in materiality, employing rare fabrics such as open-pore and matte woods, verde belvedere marble, brushed ivory onyx, and cashmere. Detail is integrated subtly, from amaranth frisé veneers to shadowgrain finishes. ‘A lot of the stuff we design we try to keep as simple and as pure as possible. Then, on top of that, it’s that layered discovery of detail, different levels of craftsmanship,’ says Saltmer.

Another thing that Bentley domestic designs and motors share is the fact that they take luxury beyond the confines of the home: the homeware brand also presents its ‘Hyde’ picnic collection at Milan Design Week.

How does Bentley do a picnic? Not with gingham or florals. Rather, the ‘Hyde’ collection features a woven picnic basket with a two-tone leather finish that, says Saltmer, ‘showcases everything that Bentley Home is about from a craftsmanship point of view’. There are also bottle holders, woollen picnic blankets, linen napkins, Murano glass flutes and Desmond-pattern plates. ‘The collection was a response to people wanting to dine outside and have that portable living,’ Saltmer adds. ‘It speaks to the whole alfresco feeling that you get in Europe.’

If you love Bentley’s cars, you’ll love the furniture. And if you can take or leave the motors, the homeware might still win you over.

bentleymotors.com

Check out more of our Milan Design Week 2025 must-sees

I’m barrelling across Tower Bridge in a vintage Bentley. At least, that’s what it feels like, with vast a rope-wound metal steering wheel beneath my gloved hands and bitter January winds rushing up the Thames and making the bridge’s mandatory 20mph speed limit feel like about 70. The only thing missing is the noise, for underneath the Bentley’s long bonnet there’s nothing but batteries.

This is the Bentley Blower Jnr, a scale recreation of one of the most iconic racing cars of all time. Announced in 2023 by the Little Car Company (since renamed Hedley Studios), the Blower Jnr is fully sanctioned by Bentley itself, with the same exacting levels of fit and finish as you’ll find in Crewe’s finest production cars.

There are crucial differences, however. For a start, the Blower Jnr is a scale model, just 85 per cent the size of the original. As a result, it seats two in a tandem configuration, not side by side, even though it’s still a fairly substantial machine. It’s also electric, and unlike Hedley Studio’s line-up of other pocket-size recreations of sporting classics, it is fully road-legal.

So just how does the Blower Jnr match up to its forebear? We didn’t have a 1920s Bentley on hand to do a comparison, but the ethos and feel certainly match up to the original, even if the sound and smell do not. The Bentley Blower was commissioned by the racing driver Sir Henry ‘Tim’ Birkin and consisted of a large supercharger affixed to the front of a Bentley 4½ Litre racing car. Performance was boosted, even if reliability suffered, but the scale of the machine, and the skill, panache and sheer nerve of the era’s drivers, made it a formidable opponent. Around 55 Blowers were built.

The car’s iconic status was cemented by Bentley’s decision to recreate it at the end of the last decade. The company’s Mulliner division scanned the original tooling jigs and components and used the original design drawings to build 12 customer cars, exacting recreations in every respect.

When it came to partnering with Hedley Studios, certain compromises had to be made. The scaled-down Jnr is 3.7m to the original’s 4.4m. It’s propelled by a 15kW electric motor, with a modest range of around 65 miles fully charged. With an equivalent power rating of 20hp, top speed is 45mph, well out of reach in central London but more than enough in such an open cockpit. Weather protection is non-existent, while the fuel tank at the rear has been repurposed into a small trunk. The ‘supercharger’ out front is now the location of the charge point.

Back on Tower Bridge, the Blower Jnr has created a Best of British tableaux straight out of central casting; the crowds of selfie-snapping tourists on the bridge don’t know how good they’ve got it. This particular car is finished in the First Edition specification, limited to 99 units (all of which have now sold out). Hedley Studios is now building a configurable edition with five distinct livery packs (all of which can be tinkered with on the company’s online configurator tool).

These livery packs evoke key moments in Bentley’s inter-war racing history. ‘The Blue Pack’ was inspired by company owner Woolf Barnato’s race against the Blue Train from the Côte d’Azur to Calais, while ‘The Grey Pack’ references the Bentley Speed Six that won at Le Mans in 1929 and 1930. Customers also have the chance to hand in hand with Mulliner up in Crewe in order to create something a bit more bespoke. Hedley is also hoping to bring customers up to its base at Bicester Heritage in Oxfordshire to see their car being built. And you can order one through a Bentley dealership.

According to Hedley Studios, the USA is by far the largest market, and many customers own a full-size Bentley as well, either an original or a continuation car (or both). The UK and Central Europe aren’t far behind. As our cross-London trip proved, this is an immensely usable city car, albeit unconventionally styled and suitable for fair weather use only (unless you possess a driving coat, hat and goggles). In fact, the Little Car Company rebranded itself partly because people had the impression that their products were primarily aimed at children.

There is something of the glorified toy about the Blower Jnr. You sit up high, with the slender wedge of glass doing very little to deflect the wind. The steering isn't ultra-precise, especially with the hefty wheel, nor does it have the neck-snapping acceleration of other electric cars. None of this matters, because above all, driving the Blower Jnr feels like an event, with unrivalled connectivity to the world outside.

Everyone you pass, from cars to cyclists, pedestrians to buses, cabs, vans and more, greets you with a smile and, more often than not, a question as well. Few cars have attracted as much attention as this one, even amongst jaded Londoners.

The Blower Jnr is the kind of beautiful trinket that moneyed car enthusiasts snap up to add to an existing collection. Road-legal status means you could conceivably undertake a shortish commute, perhaps racing up to the City from a Surrey pile and charging the car during the day. A traditional 'fly-off' handbrake adds character to your starts, while the drive selector, indicators and headlight switches all have a vivid, vintage feel.

The recreated dashboard swaps battery level for the rev counter, with a knurled wooden knob serving as a drive selector. As in Bentley’s ‘real’ road cars, there’s a catch-all ‘Bentley’ mode alongside Sport and Comfort settings. The latter gives the best range, while Sport amplifies the go-kart-like characteristics that are so smile-inducingly present in Hedley’s diminutive Bugatti, Ferrari and Aston Martin models.

Hedley Studios has found a rich seam with its electrified recreations of classics. Next up is the company’s wild reimagining of a classic 1980s toy, the remote-controlled Tamiya off-road buggy, only this time made fully drivable. Existing and potential customers constantly make suggestions for future products, but the company is staying tight-lipped for now. The Blower Jnr suggests that in their hands, anything is possible.

Bentley Blower Jnr, BentleyBlowerJnr.com, HedleyStudios.com, @Hedley.Studios

Blue, a colour that is usually associated with calmness, serenity, and peace often signifies luxury and prestige when applied to a car. For fashion designer Supriya Lele, it is a shade that speaks to her Indian heritage. Renowned for her sophisticated use of blue in her collections, Lele has recently teamed up with Bentley to create ‘Nīla Blue’, a vibrant paint spec that merges high fashion culture with automotive design.

Nīla Blue draws its name from the Sanskrit word for ‘sapphire’, a nod to Lele’s South Asian heritage. ‘Blue is a colour I'm naturally drawn to, and it has always featured heavily in my work.’ According to the designer, her connection to the hue is influenced by her cultural roots and William Gass' theoretical take on the colour in ‘On Being Blue’.

In this book, the novelist presents blue as a complex concept that weaves together language, emotions, and human experience. ‘Colour plays a key role in both my practice and brand identity. This shade of blue feels distinctive yet subtle’ says Lele.

To create this deep indigo tone, Supriya Lele collaborated with Bentley’s Mulliner division, the bespoke arm of the British automotive brand. Specialising in crafting customised luxury vehicles, Mulliner works closely with clients to develop tailored designs.

Bentley’s artisans partnered with the fashion designer to develop exclusive paint specifications and finishes for the eye-catching Bentayga S. ‘Creating the colour for Bentley was an exciting and new experience’ says Lele.

‘It was great to go to the Bentley studio, see samples of their work, and understand more about the brand’ states Lele, ‘We took our time to go through colours and think about how we should develop the car.’

According to the designer, it felt natural to transition from fashion to vehicle design. ‘The process of working on the car felt like pulling together a collection or working on a piece of clothing. I got the same buzz as I do after building each of my collections.’

For this project, the exterior of Bentley’s Bentayga S has been coated in Lele’s signature hue, with Nīla Blue pinstripes making a subtle appearance on the 22-inch sports wheels. This is complemented by striking white accents on the carbon fibre body kit.

Inside, slick black upholstery is contrasted by white piping and stitching. Satin black Naim speaker grilles are also paired with black-stained walnut veneers, which are smartly framed by custom Nīla Blue edging. The bespoke colour also runs down the sides of the door panels and dashboard.

‘Nīla Blue is an expression of subtlety and depth, a tone that reflects both Supriya’s artistic vision and Mulliner’s expertise in crafting the finest bespoke finishes’ says chief commercial officer at Mulliner, David Parker.

Available exclusively through the Mulliner Studio, Nīla Blue blends understated elegance with refined workmanship. ‘It is a hue that speaks to the discerning tastes of those who appreciate quiet luxury’ says Parker. Inspired by Lele’s work and heritage, this collaboration continues Bentley's legacy of bespoke craftsmanship that is deeply personal. Nīla Blue is more than just a colour, it is a symbol of opulence, innovation and South Asian culture.

Bentley Mulliner, BentleyMotors.com, @BentleyMotors

The annual Dubai Design Week wrapped last week, but design activity in the region is still buzzing. Premium building work in and around the area has seen the market for the 11-year-old brand Bentley Home, a partnership between the UK’s Bentley Motors and the Italian-based Luxury Living Group, rise rapidly.

Inside Bentley Home in Dubai

This November sees the launch of Bentley Home’s first flagship in Dubai, following the success of two in Riyadh, one in Jeddah and its main base in Milan close to Luxury Living’s factory in Forli where the products are fabricated. This new space, opening 19 November, is a generous, light-filled 150sq m showroom at the Dubai Mall Zabeel in the financial district, positioned advantageously at street level with a dominating four-window façade adjacent to other luxury retailers.

'It’s become clear there is a demand for Bentley Home in this marketplace,' says Chris Cooke, head of design collaborations at Bentley Motors, who works alongside Luxury Living’s Monique Zappala, creative director of Bentley Home. 'We’re currently involved in several high-profile developments in the area including Mira Villas, 36 five-bedroom homes for which we’ve furnished all the interiors. This is what Bentley stands for in terms of our level of craft and innovation – everything that the cars have been doing for so many years. The retail space is a direct reaction to what is resonating with people locally.'

The store itself, a collaboration with local retailer The Mattress Store, has been designed by Zappala’s Milan team with input from Cooke in the UK. 'Aesthetically, it feels very connected to the Milan flagship: modern and contemporary,' explains Cooke. 'We’ve created a lot of contrast of material and colour to give it a bit of drama but also it ties into our core brand which is about polarity and harmony – those two worlds working together.'

The glass-fronted showroom is full of light, walls are lined with Bentley Home finishes including a vertically engraved Pietra d’Avola stone boiserie as well as silk wall art from the Bentley Home wallpaper collection. The polished resin flooring becomes a backdrop for the collection including the dynamic Wilton desk and Bollington desk chair by Francesco Forcellini, the first pieces from the home office collection which launched earlier this year during Salone del Mobile.

'My own favourite piece is the Ramsey sofa,' adds Cooke. 'It’s a timeless piece we launched a few years ago and is one of our most successful. It’s very simple, beautifully lightweight with panelled pieces and trimmed in leather with a slim profile. The cushions are very large, padded – we spent a long time getting the language of its interior and form right, to feel comfortable without looking heavy. It’s been very popular.'

The UAE as a marketplace is known for its love of strong colour and ultra-luxury finishes, so the store is merchandised accordingly. 'We’ve created individual, domesticated moments; these spaces that feel like whole rooms,' explains Cooke. 'We find the level of customer here will walk in and want the entire thing as it is – down the books on the shelves, so, we’re presenting it in a finished, effective, high luxury environment.' The showroom also offers a customising service for those looking for something more personalised.

'Sometimes our clients might want pieces completely individualised so we can do that – we have an incredible portfolio of finishes,' says Cooke. 'The result of collaborating with a customer is that we always come up with something wonderful and unexpected. These are the pieces we hope people will keep for their entire lives – it helps having that emotional connection to the design process. A level up from that is our Furnished by Bentley Home service: our team will come into your home and design absolutely everything from fine-crafted walls and floors to the lighting and furniture – it’s a complete 360.'

bentleymotors.com

It ought to be easy to write about the new, fourth generation Bentley Continental GT and GTC Speed. As regular as clockwork, Bentley updates and overhauls its flagship grand tourer every few years, adding in new technology, burnishing the capabilities and expressive outlets of its team of craftspeople and generally making things faster, smoother, more efficient and, well, better.

Given that the last iteration of the GT was pretty good, all that remains is to mark this new one down as excellent. Job done, then? In many respects, yes. Bentley furnished us with brand new examples of both the GT and the convertible GTC, put Wallpaper* up in a cavernous suite in The Chedi Andermatt and somehow contrived to find excellent weather for around 200km of very fine, clear Swiss alpine passes. It was fabulous.

So why is this car so good? The GT was the car that transformed Bentley’s fortunes, turning it from a manufacturer of staid-looking but brutishly fast performance grand tourers and saloons, the latter closely related to offerings from then sister company Rolls-Royce. The Volkswagen Group acquired the prestigious pair in 1998 but in 2003 there was a great schism in luxury motoring, and the Rolls-Royce name (and name only) fell under the control of BMW. VW retained the historic factory at Crewe and decades of engineering and craft experience, albeit much that was stuck several generations in the past.

The very first Continental GT went on sale in 2003 having debuted the year before at the Paris Motor Show. The car represented a massive investment and a considerable leap of faith for the VW Group, driven through in part by the persistence of Adrian Hallmark, then Bentley’s Board Member responsible for Sales & Marketing and later to be the company’s CEO from 2018 to 2024. Hallmark had the backing of influential VW Group chairman Ferdinand Piëch, a trained engineer whose career was marked by resource-hungry prestige projects.

That first generation car was a huge success. Priced at around £110,000, it instantly broadened Bentley’s demographic, lowering the typical owner’s average age, and reaching into new markets. The model was then given a massive update in 2011, by which point it was clear that Bentley considered the GT to be akin to its ‘911’, an evergreen model name that could last for generations as it became the vessel for new advances in styling and technology.

The following year, Bentley equipped the GT with a V8 engine, a model that sat alongside the W12 powertrain that had been with the car since its inception (another piece of Piëch’s engineering largesse). In 2018, the Continental GT was thoroughly refreshed once again to create the third generation car.

That all-new platform survives beneath this fourth generation model, but the W12 has finally gone. From now onwards, the only available powertrain is a twin-turbo Hybrid V8, one that’s shared with the new Flying Spur. With 782 PS , the Speed model (which at the time of writing is the only GT and GTC available) is the most powerful production car Bentley has ever made.

Despite this plethora of power, the Continental preserves decorum by defaulting to electric mode when you start it. The battery is a modest 25.9 kWh, but it should be good for around 50 miles of pure EV drive, as well as provide the all-important electric boost to the V8 and its twin turbos. That’s where the headline power figure comes from, and the hybrid system (also found in Porsche’s closely related Panamera) provides a number of drive modes, including a regeneration function that puts miles back on the battery when you’re cruising at speed.

The powertrain is better in literally every way than the original W12, and still manages to sound ferocious when pushed hard. Bentley points out that 'no artificial noise enhancement is added in the cabin,' unlike other manufacturers who have been known to subtly boost the sound of an engine through the audio system.

The GT has always been a handsome car, although Bentley’s attempts to crystalise its weighty handsomeness into a three-pronged design ethos – ‘resting beast,’ ‘upright elegance’ and ‘endless bonnet’ – feels a little forced. Suffice to say that the GT’s resting beast face is attached to a truly elegant car, a machine that takes full advantage of its mighty scale to create excellent proportions.

The design, which was unveiled earlier this summer, soars rather close to the lofty heights of the Bentley Batur. This ultra-bespoke iteration of the GT, built in an edition of just 18 , along with the open-topped Bentley Bacalar (built an edition of 12), foreshadowed the new single headlight details of the GT, a departure from the four headlight face the car has had since its inception.

The Swiss launch provided the first chance to get behind the wheel of the uprated car. The uninitiated would be forgiven for thinking that a machine weighing in at nearly 2.5 tons is too substantial to have any sporting aptitude, ill-suited to the twisting hairpins of the Alps would. Instead, the location was a measure of Bentley’s confidence in the new Continental GT. In the hands of a vastly more experienced driver than us, this big machine hustled its way up, down and across four of the country’s most spectacular mountain passes, never once feeling anything less than perfectly planted and devastatingly quick.

Active all-wheel drive is paired with a veritable armoury of clever ride and dynamic control systems to keep the car feeling planting, lithe and way smaller than its physical size would suggest. The air damped suspension has been tweaked to make the comfort setting plusher and more pliable, without compromising the solid, unyielding stability you need in sport mode. In short, The GT (and its open-topped GTC sibling) is an amazing, beautiful thing, and it's hard to begrudge anyone who’s chosen to deploy the conspicuous amount of funds required to acquire one.

As it was in the beginning, the Continental is a grand tourer that’s also an extremely capable sports car. For the most part, the 100,000 or so models sold over the past two decades have gone to those who favour the former, not the latter. This is particularly evident with the GTC, a machine pitched at the boulevards of Miami and Malibu, not the twistier spots of central Europe. That’s largely because Bentley has ensured that luxury, craft and technology have always been a core part of the GT’s character.

The interior is largely unchanged from the Generation Three cars, but is still one of the best of any contemporary car, luxury or otherwise. There are gimmicky but rewardingly fun elements like the tri-rotating central dash display, which flips from the screen to dials to nothing, and of course plenty of scope for the chromatically challenged to wreak havoc on the meticulously assembled dash structure and interior surfaces, courtesy of Bentley’s Mulliner customisation division.

For generation four, the Continental GT gets an all-new electrical architecture, taking on board current ADAS (Advanced driver-assistance systems) regulations. We’re not sure how useful ‘Intelligent Park Assist’ will be in the Bentley’s world of valet parking and expansive driveways. An even more superfluous a party trick is ‘Remote Park Assist’, which allows you to remotely manoeuvre the car using the Bentley app on your phone. Other innovations have a quiet common sense, like the intelligent air conditioning that automatically switches to recirculation mode when it detects you’re in a long tunnel.

The most important modern technology of all, pure EV drive, is notable by its absence. Like many other luxury car makers, Bentley has seemingly moved its electrification programme over to the slow lane now that hybrids are enjoying a late renaissance amongst luxury car buyers. Although the company claims to be still on track to show its first pure EV in 2026 – and promises that it won’t be a replacement for an existing car – the strength and flexibility of the Continental GT’s hybrid drive offers the majority of customers all that they need for now.

Plug-in hybrids are no longer a transitional technology but actually something very desirable, the automotive equivalent of having your cake and eating it. The GT Speed can be a smooth, silent electric running machine that'll glide into a mews in the early hours without waking the neighbours, as well as a rabid, snarling sports car with acceleration that outpaces most EVs and improbably high top speed of 208 mph.

It’s not uncontroversial to say the GT is too fast even for an autobahn, that last bulwark of automotive libertarianism. Despite that lurid, headline-grabbing figure and the bragging that’ll inevitably accompany it, the new Bentley Continental GT Speed represents a colossal achievement, a new summit for luxury motoring.

Bentley Continental GT Speed, prices from £250,000+, BentleyMotors.com, @BentleyMotors

Wallpaper* stayed at The Chedi Andermatt, courtesy of Bentley Motors, TheChediAndermatt

A few years ago, you would have been forgiven for thinking that the tiresome battle over power ratings in luxury cars was over. The arrival of electrification, with its fearsome power outputs and ultra-rapid acceleration times should have put paid to the squabbling over horsepower and cylinders and displacement and torque curves.

Not a bit of it. Bentley launches its revised and updated Flying Spur limousine with the tagline ‘the most powerful Bentley four-door ever’. The fourth generation version of this admirable machine doesn’t do much in the way of visual overhauls (compared to its closely related Continental GT sibling, which received a more radical make-over earlier this year). Instead, it’s primarily about the numbers.

The stats aren’t all pitched at old school bragging rights, although with 782PS and a 3.3 second sprint to 60mph, this sedan is firmly in supercar territory. Bentley is more interested in the 47 miles of pure electric range the hybrid powertrain delivers, going on to highlight its 515-mile touring range, as well as the fact it ‘outperforms previous W12 Speed on every metric: torque, power, acceleration and emissions.’

That’s significant for some, as the old W12 Speed had a bespoke 12-cylinder engine at its heart, a mighty piece of engineering that defined modern era Bentley refinement and skill. That engine is no longer, to the sadness of some, but as Bentley notes, it can’t hold a candle to the mix of electric power and a new V8.

Visually, the new Flying Spur offers a few aesthetic updates to the third-generation model, although they’re pretty subtle (a new grille, bumper and diffuser and wheel options). The more substantial changes are to the car’s electrical system and powertrain, with a new electrical architecture that handles elements like the Performance Active Chassis, Bentley Dynamic Ride, and All-Wheel Steering. All this wizardry helps cloak the Flying Spur Speed’s considerable size and bulk, making it start, ride and stop like a much smaller, defter car.

Another area of improvement is the interior, where options on leather alone run to 700 colour combinations, and that’s before unleashing the infinite possibilities made available by Bentley’s Mulliner coachbuilding division. Top-flight audio comes from either Bang & Olufsen or Naim, and there’s now the ability to specify Bentley’s ‘Wellness Seating Specification’ on the four main seats. This system uses sensors to measure body temperature and posture and subtly adjusts the pressure to minimise fatigue.

The Flying Spur has come a long way since it was just Bentley’s nod to the limousine trade and the old-fashion saloons that defined it in the 1960s through to the 1980s. Now firmly established as the brand’s technological showcase, the fourth generation car can lay a credible claim to being the best executive conveyance on the planet, private jets included.

Bentley Flying Spur Speed, price tbc, for more information visit BentleyMotors.com, @BentleyMotors

Bentley has debuted its new Continental GT Speed, the latest iteration of grand tourer flagship, now billed as being the ‘most powerful Bentley ever created’. That extra whack comes from the integration of the company’s new Ultra Performance Hybrid powertrain, taking the total power output on this fourth generation model to 782 PS.

The hybrid system has been co-developed with the engineering might of parent company Volkswagen, which has already deployed this high performance hybrid system in the latest Porsche Panamera e-hybrid. In the Continental GT Speed, it offers a vast breadth of ability, from 50 miles of pure electric range to a top speed of 208 mph.

This is the fourth generation of the car that transformed Bentley from an inhabitant of a luxury backwater into one of the world’s preeminent brands. Arriving in 2002, the GT was the first fruit of new ownership and new investment. Instantly successful, it was overhauled in 2010 and the substantially updated and upgraded in 2018 on an all-new platform.

This fourth generation car showcases a clear stylistic crossover with the strictly limited-edition Bentley Batur, particularly in the new headlights, which eschew the double lamp set-up that has been part of the Conti GT’s face since its inception.

On-board technology goes beyond the hybrid system and will include four-wheel steering, four-wheel drive, active anti-roll control and a new damping system. In the past, this emphasis on tech has given the big Bentley coupé a formidable dynamic capability that belies its size.

Inside and out, the focus on bespoke finishes, colours and materials will continue much as before. Bentley has made great strides in the discovery and refinement of more sustainably sourced materials, from driftwood to textured surfaces, and you can expect the fourth generation GT to deliver even more on this front. The company has chosen to unveil both GT and GTC convertible at the same time, with the latter set to be one of the swiftest four-seater convertibles ever made.

We’ll be delivering a full drive report on both variants of the new Continental GT in due course.

Bentley Continental GT Speed, price tbc, BentleyMotors.com, @BentleyMotors

The Macallan and Bentley Motors have collaborated on a smooth, limited-edition single-malt whisky to celebrate the distiller’s 200th birthday. Titled ‘The Macallan Horizon’ the light amber-coloured nectar is presented in a horizontal glass bottle enveloped with silky wood that playfully reveals its core. The presentation’s sleek exterior reflects the interior workings of the sought-after luxury cars, and gives the whisky a dynamic, 180-degree twist.

The Macallan Horizon with Bentley Motors

The two companies teased the collaboration in September 2023, showcasing the prototype presentation for The Macallan Horizon and its horizontal design.

The Macallan distillery,founded in 1824 by Alexander Reid, sits along the River Spey in Scotland. A tranquil environment that has provided a vast source of inspiration for its array of whiskies, including The Macallan Horizon. The celebratory release is built on ‘six pillars’ (six materials) that define the storied craftsmanship of The Macallan and are shared with Bentley Motors.

Reused copper from old stills features in The Macallan Horizon’s design as a delicate detail, mirroring the deep colour of the spirit. The presentation’s sculptural foundation is crafted from aluminium, which is also used as a structural ribbon that runs through its form. Wood is shaped into the design’s notable twist, which caresses the vessel, and finished with a ‘Crown Cut Walnut’ veneer, exclusive to Bentley. Presented in a glass vessel, intrinsic for both brands, The Macallan Horizon is protected by a leather sleeve in a chestnut colourway, which complements the earthy colour palette.

The whisky was crafted specifically for The Macallan Horizon and inspired by Bentley’s vehicles. Kirsteen Campbell, master whisky maker at The Macallan, toured the Bentley factory in Crewe to capture the essence of a Bentley car through taste and texture. From there, she whittled down six first-fill, sherry-seasoned oak casks from the estate, and began to craft the revolutionary single malt. The warming spirit carries a velvety smooth taste that packs notes of cinnamon, nutmeg and crystallised ginger, followed by hints of rich sticky dates, sweet orange, vanilla pods, fudge and chocolate. It’s a fine-tuned balance, with a finish that delivers comfort and refinement.

themacallan.com

bentleymotors.com

So you want to be an Instagram star? Consider investing in a vintage Fiat 500 Jolly beach car. An adorable sky-blue model from 1959, with wicker seats and an open roof, went up for auction at this year’s Zoute Sale in Knokke-Heist, Belgium. Prior to the sale, it took a few last trips through town, as delighted bystanders smiled, waved, and snapped photos galore.

The beach community known as Knokke Le Zoute was having one of the year’s busiest weekends, thanks to the annual Zoute Grand Prix, a four-day high-end car, art, and lifestyle festival in early October that includes a BonhamsCars auction of vintage and classic cars, an exhibition of new top-of-the-line contemporary cars, a three-day classic car rally, and a GT tour.

Buckle up for the Zoute Grand Prix

The Fiat Jolly had competition for attention – seemingly every other car on the road that weekend was a collector’s item, and the quiet atmosphere was punctuated by the muscular growl of revving engines. At the luxury La Réserve hotel, teenage boys, ‘car spotters’, circled the parking lot, cameras in hand. A particularly excited group gathered to photograph a Bugatti Chiron with German plates. One spotter, from Luxembourg, explained that an alert about the car had gone out on social media. ‘You don’t see many like this,’ he said, kissing his fingers appreciatively.

But fine cars are never an unusual sight here; even a young woman working in the hotel lobby pulled out her phone to show off her family’s two Porsches. Asked whether anyone here drives a Subaru, she just laughed. ‘This is Knokke.’

Commonly referred to as Belgium’s Saint-Tropez, Knokke-Heist was settled at the beginning of the 20th century by three families who catered to British tourists by building a golf course, tennis courts, stables, and white villas with red tile roofs. 

Today, Knokke counts 33,000 inhabitants and 110,000 owners of second homes. Name a monarch or billionaire, and he (or she) is probably here. People are drawn not only by the favourable tax code, but also by 11km of sandy beach, high-end shopping, Michelin-starred restaurants, and a thriving art scene. The town’s art deco casino boasts an astonishing 360-degree mural by Belgian Surrealist René Magritte, measuring 70m wide by 7m tall (soon to be restored as part of a major facelift by TAB Architects and Barozzi Veiga).

The town contains 90 art galleries in just two square kilometres. Perhaps its most prestigious dealer is Guy Pieters, the Belgian son of a house painter who opened his first gallery in Knokke in 1981, knowing he would find collectors nearby. One of his longtime artists is Wolfgang Volz, Christo’s exclusive photographer, who was in town to show his photos of the wrapped Arc de Triomphe. ‘I didn’t know how to spell Knokke,’ said Volz. ‘Now I’ve had about five solo exhibitions here.’

Another artist in Knokke for the weekend was Princess Delphine of Belgium, only recently recognised as part of the royal family after her father, King Albert II, was obliged by the courts to take a DNA test. She drove the last leg of the auto rally in a BMW 507 roadster (lent by BMW from its heritage fleet), just like the one Elvis Presley acquired when doing his military service in Germany. 

Female drivers were definitely a minority in the Zoute Rally, which attracted 250 historic cars and typically has a waiting list. A woman named Patricia, from Antwerp, took the wheel of a red 1963 Jaguar E-Type, while her male partner navigated. When asked why she got to drive, she smiled: ‘Because it’s my car.’

The Zoute Grand Prix was founded in 2010 by two brothers, Filip and David Bourgoo, who owned an Audi-Bentley dealership. Believing that motor shows had grown too big and no longer attracted the right people, they displayed a new car in central Knokke, in front of the Louis Vuitton boutique. Sensing an opportunity, Ferrari asked them to build a marquee for its new products. Other brands followed. ‘Ten years ago, we had to beg to sell cars in Knokke,’ said Filip. ‘Now they’re queuing.’

Collector’s items, contemporary and classic

Visitors paid €75 for a ticket to enter the Grand Prix’s two beachside pavilions. In the Prado Zoute pavilion, 21 car manufacturers showed their latest models, from the Lamborghini Revuelto to the Ferrari Purosangue four-seater. Around half were electric. The car drawing the biggest crowds was the fully electric Rolls-Royce Spectre that customers had just started receiving that very week. The beautiful beast weighed 3 tonnes, with a choice of 44,000 paint colours, and a price tag of €525,000. Product expert Ed Drake said that the car’s bespoke road sound (to alert pedestrians to its presence) was recorded by an orchestra imitating the sound of a Rolls-Royce accelerating.  

Tucked away among the collector cars was the new Rimac Nevera, the young Croatian brand’s first commercial automobile, which has set the record as the world’s fastest electric production car: 0-100 km/h in 1.81 seconds. Brand manager Bernard Van Bellingen said they sold one car this year – a special version, to a buyer in Belgium, for €2.4 million – and that the year’s second sale ‘will arrive’.

There are cars that people drive, and those that sit pretty. The latter, 96 collector cars, were on display in the Zoute Gallery pavilion. Many had barely ever touched asphalt. All of them hit the block on Sunday at BonhamsCars’ tenth annual Zoute Sale, which has quickly become one of the world’s most important auctions of rare collection cars. Ruinart Champagne flowed freely, poured by servers in Magritte-inspired bowler hats. 

Several cars (notably supercars and hypercars), sold for close to one million euros or more, receiving audience applause each time they hit the milestone. An immaculate 2014 Porsche 918 Spyder with less than 400km on the odometer doubled its bottom estimate to reach €1.2 million. ‘Who woulda thought?’ said the auctioneer, Maarten ten Holder, managing director of BonhamsCars, as it blew past one million.

Surprising rarities included a 1997 SAAB EX prototype, a one-of-a-kind car made for the company’s 50th anniversary. A collection of eight different Aston Martins from 2010 were all painted the same tangerine orange colour – a special request by the original owner. A 1956 Bentley S-Type Continental was formerly driven by Helmut Newton. And a 1998 Aston Martin DB7 Volante once cradled J.Lo’s bottom in her ‘Love Don’t Cost a Thing’ music video. Love may be cheap, but this car ended up being a steal at just over €40,000.

The star of the sale was a stunning beige 1959 Ferrari 250 GT ‘Tour de France’ with all original parts, owned for 37 years by Swiss racing driver Plinio Haas. It went for slightly below its estimate, €4.83 million (including premium), to a North American client, pushing the day’s total sales to more than €27 million, a record for BonhamsCars.

And the little blue Fiat Jolly? After a round of lively bidding, it sold for an impressive €155,250 to a bidder from the United Arab Emirates.

Zoute Grand Prix, ZouteGrandPrix.be, Cars.Bonhams.com

In the old days, Bentley’s flagship was a saloon car. Tradition dictated that the most prestigious vehicle in a fleet should be a large, preferably stretched, four-door saloon with elegance, gravitas and presence. Over the past 100 years, many Bentley saloons have nobly taken on this role, from the two monumental Bentley State Limousines built for the late Queen Elizabeth, to the Mulsanne, a vast saloon produced from 2010 to 2020. 

The Mulsanne was very much the last of its kind, built on a bespoke platform to the same levels of near-maniacal perfection that drove other high profile VW Group projects of this golden era of intensive engineering – cars like the Bugatti Veyron and the Volkswagen Phaeton. Yet while Bentley still has a perfectly good saloon car in its line-up, the excellent Flying Spur, it’s chosen the Bentayga SUV to be its new pinnacle. 

The Bentayga should have been controversial. Introduced in 2015, it followed the deep furrows left by other luxury SUVs and eventually carried Bentley to new heights of profit and production. Unlike the hugely complex Mulliner (constructed in such a way that no battery could ever fit, even for a hybrid system), the Bentayga sits on a tried and tested, highly flexible VW Group engineering platform, allowing Bentley’s engineers to do practically whatever they like.

Since it debuted, we’ve seen Bentaygas take an ill-fated foray into diesel power, go hybrid and even get stretched with the EWB (extended wheelbase) model. 

Mulliner starts with the EWB as standard, skipping the hybrid option and plumps for the 4.0-litre twin turbo V8. The additional length all goes into that voluminous rear passenger compartment, configured as two reclining ‘airline-style’ seats, with a practically limitless number of colour and trim options. 

Inside the Bentley Bentayga EWB Mulliner

For most luxury car buyers, high specification and extensive personalisation tick all the right boxes. More and more features and options are piled upon the buying process, making it as intricate and empowering as possible. The Mulliner division is making much of new sustainable options, like leather tanned with wastewater from olive oil pressing, and carpets made from recycled nylon. Smart seats ensure the car’s occupants enjoy ‘optimum thermal wellbeing’, and the materials, controls and instrumentation convey digital realities through a filter of nostalgic wonder for engineering solidity and heft. 

How long will the Bentayga EWB Mulliner fly the role of flagship? It’s disconcerting to report that the car market seems to have no upper limit on extravagance. Rolls-Royce’s recent quartet of Droptail speedsters and even Bentley’s own Bacalar and Batur models, demonstrate that even cars costing from £2 to £20m will still find buyers. Where next? Although the Bentayga EWB Mulliner will transport you in supreme comfort, the destination is down what is an increasingly untrodden path. 

Bentley Bentayga EWB Mulliner, from £245,000, BentleyMotors.com

This is the Bentley Blower Jr, an 85 per cent scale recreation (not replica) of the magnificent 1929 Supercharged Bentley. The latest vehicle from The Little Car Company, the Jr is a beautifully authentic recreation that somehow conveys the size and heft of the original, with the 4.5-litre engine swapped out and replaced by a 15kW electric motor. 

We've previously enthused over The Little Car Company’s pint-sized recreations of classic Bugattis, Ferraris and Aston Martins, but the Blower Jr is by far the physically largest project the company has undertaken (to date). 

At 3.7m long and 1.5m wide, the Blower Jr is still a pretty sizeable machine, with a presence that matches the interwar original. The Little Car Company’s team used Bentley’s own 1929 4.5-litre Supercharged Team Car No. 2, one of the most prized cars in the brand’s Heritage Collection, to master the design, form and materials of the Blower Jr, with details recreated at the chosen, still sizeable, scale.  

This particular original car (insured for £25m) will also inspire the colour and trim of the first 99 Blower Jrs to come off The Little Car Company’s modest manufacturing facility at Bicester, Oxfordshire, from early in 2024. 

The ‘Blower’ name comes from the superchargers used to boost the power of the fabled racing Bentleys of the 1920s. Just 55 of these 4.5-litre machines were made, five of which were earmarked for competition use. ‘UU 5872’, shown here, finished second in the 1930 Le Mans 24 Hours race, behind another Works Bentley. Bentley has owned the car since 2000. 

Crucially, unlike The Little Car Company’s other products, the Blower Jr has been designed to be fully road legal. With tandem seating for two adults and their luggage, and an expected range of around 65 miles, it won’t be challenging even the lightest of modern city cars. However, the Blower Jr’s top speed of 45mph will certainly keep it competitive in urban traffic, allowing it to live up to the company’s suggestion that it is ‘the most sophisticated city car ever built’. It will also share the giddying handling characteristics of its stablemates, providing enormous entertainment on the track. 

Hand-built, using materials and techniques derived from the original car, the EV rides on a painted steel frame, complete with leaf springs and friction dampers. The electric motor is mounted across the rear axle, with batteries and electronics concealed within a hidden undertray. 

The original cars used an ash frame for the bodywork, but the Blower Jr utilises carbon fibre, over which is stretched the same impregnated fabric used in the 1920s cars. 

The front-mounted supercharger – designed to suck in more air to the engine – has been repurposed as a charging socket (Type 1 and Type 2 included), with the Bentley mesh grille all present and correct. There’s also the distinctive pattern of engine-turned aluminium on the dash, with switches that imitate the look and feel of the original car, albeit repurposed for an EV drive system. A concealed USB charge point, discreet satnav and reversing camera complete the suite of essential modern tech.

As with every undertaking by The Little Car Company, detail is top-notch. Every facet of the car has been developed in close collaboration with Bentley itself, right down to the rope-wound steering wheel. A couple of years ago, the British luxury car maker kicked off its own exclusive edition of 12 Continuation Blowers at its workshops in Crewe. Using a mix of ancient and modern toolsets (and ancient and modern experience and skill), Bentley is precisely replicating the original cars at 1:1 scale, especially for those who want to participate in classic rallies and races without the insurance headaches and ruinous repair costs.

Bentley's Continuation series is a profitable sideline for a company that prides itself in its bespoke capabilities; 12 examples of the Bentley Speed Six model will follow. At a fraction of the cost, dare we say it, but the Blower Jr is perhaps a more sensible bet for the eccentric everyday driver. 

For more details, visit BentleyBlowerJr.com

TheLittleCar.co, BentleyMotors.com

Take the road trip of a lifetime at the wheel of one of the world’s most sought after luxury cars. Bentley Motors has unveiled a global calendar of ‘Extraordinary Journeys’ - a speciality travel series that gives exclusive access to the finest design, architecture, and hospitality in a variety of inspirational locations. These include the UK, New Mexico and Scandinavia, with more destinations to be announced. 

The Bentley trips focus on small groups who have the opportunity to drive a range of Bentley cars for the first time, or for existing customers to drive new models. During three to five days of epic motoring across spectacular landscapes, the drivers make their selection from the company’s five model lines: The Continental GT, Continental GT Convertible, FlyingSpur, Bentayga and Bentayga EWB, with the chance to try a different model on each leg of the journey.

The cars travel in convoy, with a lead car, which rather like the safety car in motorsport, is there to lead the way, set the pace, and ensure there are no obstructions (though you will be travelling at a more relaxing speed on this journey than on a racetrack).

There is no need to worry about losing sight of the lead driver as each car is equipped with a pre-programmed satellite navigation system and you can always see exactly where you are and where you are heading. Thoughtfully, Bentley have curated an excellent playlist to enhance the drive through their state of the art sound system. A full team of technicians follows the convoy in a van in case of any mishap or mechanical issue and for good measure, the whole convoy is in radio contact, through which fascinating facts about the surrounding regions are conveyed. 

Anything that could be stressful about a road trip has been removed from the experience so there is no distraction from the pleasure of the drive. Logistical details such as navigation, luggage, accommodation, and sustenance are all seamlessly taken care of by the Bentley events team; your bags travel separately and simply appear in your room when you arrive; the cars are cleaned every night and are lined up, spotless, gleaming, and ready to drive off in the morning. For posterity, your trip is professionally documented by photographers capturing stills and film, and they are equipped with drones to achieve magnificent sweeping shots of the event.

The behind the scenes work of the Bentley team enables you to focus solely on the enjoyment of driving an opulent supercar through stunning scenery. Settle into its lush interior for a journey that takes you to fantastic places, with luxurious accommodation, and cuisine served by world renowned chefs. Each evening the group dines together in a beautiful and sometimes unexpected setting; comparing notes as the adventure unfolds and relaxing while you share exquisite food and wine, adds another, enriching layer to the experience.

Caren Jochner, Global Head of Brand Experience at Bentley Motors, said, ‘We want to share with our customers and fans an extraordinary journey of discovery offering access to usually private and exclusive experiences that only Bentley can provide. We have worked closely with globally like-minded partners that share our passion for excellence whether it be in the field of cuisine, design, architecture, or wellness – all with sustainability at heart. This, coupled with our carefully curated driving experiences, provides something truly unique – an extraordinary journey and once in a lifetime experience that offers the opportunity to connect you with like-minded souls – an experience money alone can’t buy.'

To give a flavour of what lies in store for the Bentley traveller: the Scandinavian journey encompasses 650 km between Sweden and Denmark. It begins with a delicious dinner and an overnight stay at Ett Hem Hotel in Stockholm - an elegant Arts and Crafts townhouse with the warm feel of a private home. The adventure continues with a glorious drive into verdant countryside, and a night spent at Trakt Forest Hotel, nestled deep in Swedish woodland. Exceptional Nordic cuisine, cooked over wood by celebrated chef Niklas Ekstedt, is served under a canopy of trees. The continuing drive towards Copenhagen takes in the wonderful Wanås Sculpture Park before heading for the glamorous Nimb Hotel, and also an exclusive tour of BIG studios, one of the world's greatest architectural practices.

This journey includes the famous Øresund Bridge between Sweden and Denmark, whose 16 km span consists of both a bridge and a long tunnel. Crossing this is an experience in itself - when you factor in a Bentley, it is unforgettable.

bentleymotors.com

The magnificent new Bentley Batur, claims the brand, is the first-ever limited-edition hypercar that can be realistically used every day. Based on the eminently practical Continental GT, the Batur is for those who don’t want to be a sweaty contortionist in an Aston Martin Valkyrie or Mercedes AMG1, or travel everywhere with a support vehicle full of butlers, like the Rolls-Royce Boat Tail. As a company spokesman explained, Bentley’s ethos is to create cars that make you feel better at the end of a long journey, rather than worse. 

At over £1.6m a pop, we hope new Batur owners will also retain their sense of financial security at journey’s end, for aside some from some headline engine fettling and brand-new bodywork, the Batur is, whisper it, not a massive departure from the current generation GT. Both have the same fluid proportions and grand physical presence, qualities that have defined every Bentley ever since the company started making cars back in 1919.

Ultimately, the Batur is Mulliner’s show, a canvas upon which the in-house coachbuilding division can go to town and deploy its full arsenal of skills, from bespoke to leatherwork to 3D-printed gold. Mulliner’s affiliation with the company dates back to the 1920s, when it would craft bespoke bodywork for what were essentially race-bred engines strapped to tried and tested chassis. 

The independent company was one of many offering a similar service to the high-end automakers of the inter-war era, only to see the craft slowly die out with new construction methods and technologies from the late 1950s onwards. Mulliner was acquired by Bentley in 1959, and is now a fully in-house operation, located in an old-school workshop on Bentley’s Crewe campus. It’s where Bentley builds its continuation cars, like the magnificent recreations of the 1929 Blower and the Le Mans-winning Bentley Speed Six, as well as executing the most indulgent and complex customer requests. 

The Batur, like its sister car the Bacalar convertible, is effectively one such massive customer request. It’s also a bold step for Bentley, which has watched many of its rivals in the luxury sphere move into upscale limited editions as a way of catering to the desires and deep pockets of their most ardent fans. Bentley wasn’t sure if its brand credibility would reach so deep into UHNWI territory, but no-one baulked at the Batur’s sticker price; clearly there’s more mileage to be had out of the company’s little black book. 

Our Bentley Batur test drive

First things first: the aesthetic. While the Batur is unashamedly about the mighty W12 engine at its heart, there are strong hints here at the future shape of electric Bentleys to come, as revealed to us by former Head of Bentley Design Andreas Mindt, who described it as ‘purified Bentley design’. 

The core visual components of this new era represented in the Batur include powerful rear haunches (allegedly inspired by a resting lion), the massive, upright Bentley grille, and the long, long bonnet. The latter elements matter not a jot to a clean-sheet EV design, but Bentley will need to bring decades of design heritage with it during the transition, so expect proportions to remain inspired by classic GTs for the time being, even though radical interior ideas have been mooted in the recent past.

A classic GT is what this car is, as well as being a titanically sybaritic statement. Comparing it with the Continental GT is akin to the difference between a first class seat and a private jet; both are exceptional experiences, only the latter is in a league of its own. 

Our very privileged time behind the wheel of one of only two completed cars to date took place on the volcanic rock-strewn roads of Tenerife, in the midst of a rare tropical storm, so we can’t attest to the car’s dynamic abilities. Suffice to say, the treacherous conditions had no bearing on the cabin ambiance, with its rich material palette, monumental sound system (a £50,000 option developed in collaboration with French audio specialist Focal), or even the distant noise of that mighty engine. 

Paul Williams, Bentley's head of powertrain, explains how the mighty W12 engine has been retuned for more overall power, giving the car a zero to 60 sprint of around 3.3 seconds and a top speed of 209mph, both marginal gains over the original, but significant enough to those that care. Progress is effortless, refinement first rate, and comfort and accoutrements nothing short of excellent. 

One of these first two completed cars was Bentley’s final validation machine; the other the original engineering prototype. You wouldn't know it to look at them, given the exacting finishes and lustrous paintwork. The latter car has already travelled over 25,000 miles, a figure that could conceivably be more than all the other Bentley Baturs collectively achieve over the next few decades. 

But should such extravagant machines be put to work as regular transport, their lucky owners have surely made a wise choice; no one straps into a low-slung, Formula 1-inspired slingshot for a brief spin on public roads, unless they’re a masochistic extrovert. In contrast, the Batur doesn’t shout (depending on colour choice) and could even be considered as the ultimate expression of stealth wealth.

It’s unlikely that all 18 Batur customers will be chosing low-key options. Mulliner prepared four sample specifications to show what could be achieved, with a good eye and a bit of training, with bodywork in a number of vivid and exotically named colours like Wasabi, Sunbeam, Daybright Blue and Black Crystal. Given that the combination of interior colour and material choices run into the billions, a bit of informed curation is probably wise. 

One senses that the more striking elements, like the 18ct gold Bentley Dynamic Drive Selector, are answers to questions that were never asked, but once an option is on the books, someone somewhere will no doubt want to select it. Only the windscreen and A-pillars are shared with the original GT, with a wider track and sleeker, precisely fitted panels made of carbon fibre – hand-built allows for much tighter tolerances. 

Despite this wealth of experience and willing buyers, Bentley still finds itself playing catch-up. Rolls-Royce is the first ultra-luxury brand to stick its head up above the parapet of electrification, bringing the new Spectre electric coupé to market a full 18 months ahead of Bentley’s first electric effort. Behind each legendary British badge is a Teutonic titan of the contemporary motor industry (Rolls has BMW, Bentley has the VW Group). 

Although each parent company is well advanced down their respective roads to full electrification, the Spectre still has a whiff of the unknown about it, being first out of the gate. In contrast, Bentley's EV will need to arrive fully formed and completely resolved. If nothing else, the Batur shows there’s still an inexhaustible appetite for luxury innovation, and that Bentley is hell-bent on finding new ways to push the envelope ever further.

Bentley Batur, all 18 examples pre-sold, BentleyMotors.com

There was a time when owning a private jet was enough of a reason to brag. These days, though, with every rapper and reality TV star Instagramming their weekend jaunt in their sparkling jet, it’s easy to forgive that little sigh of ennui.

Leave it to Flexjet – which offers shared ownership and access programmes – to up the ante by teaming up with Bentley to dress up the interiors of the latest addition to its European fleet, the Gulfstream G650, the ultra-long-range jet having debuted to tremendous applause this past September in Malta. 

And it’s easy to see why. Quite apart from the G650’s Top Gun-like performance specs – it can cover 11,500km and hit a top cruising speed of Mach 0.925 – its interiors echo the luxe moodboard and silhouettes of Bentley’s extremely rare Mulliner Bacalar (announced in 2020, only 12 examples of the two-door open-top motorcar exist, with each customised to its owner’s specs), complete with seats encased with the white leather basketweave stitching which will be immediately recognisable by any Bentley aficionado. 

The seamless segue between ground transport and airborne fleet is reinforced with Flexjet’s simultaneous launch of its European point-to-point helicopter service in a Sikorsky S-76, the latter also featuring the design imprint of the Bentley Mulliner Bacalar. 

Lest anyone be concerned about the possible dilution of Bentley’s aesthetic marque, Flexjet CEO Michael Silvestro is quick to point out that ‘like the Bacalar, of which there are no two alike, we will only be using this interior in one of our helicopters and one of our Gulfstream G650 aircraft’.  

The Bentley collaboration is just one of the salvos to be fired in Flexjet’s ambitious expansion plans, the company already working with a slew of blue-chip partners ranging from yachting companies and spas, fashion houses and retailers to luxury hotel brands.

bentleymotors.com; flexjet.com

The Macallan and Bentley Motors have revealed a first look at the extraordinary result of a collaboration between two titans of global luxury.

Bentley, manufacturer of the most sought-after luxury cars, and The Macallan, maker of some of the world’s best whiskies, have combined their storied craftsmanship and expertise to create The Macallan Horizon – a limited-edition single malt whisky with a highly original presentation. While the project remains in development, the prototype has just been revealed.

Jaume Ferras, global creative director for The Macallan, remarks: ‘By sharing learnings from both our crafts, built up over generations, what The Macallan and Bentley Motors have created together completely evolves the design of what a whisky product should look like. The Macallan Horizon is a beautifully designed product with innovation at its heart.’

The collaboration melds materials and techniques from the production procedures of both brands. In a nod to the ‘six pillars’ that underpin The Macallan’s approach, it incorporates six upcycled, repurposed or ethically sourced materials (the majority sourced and produced locally in Scotland and the UK) that are integral to the two companies.

These include recycled copper from the distillery stills, aluminium recovered from the Bentley Motors manufacturing process, recycled wood, recyclable glass and locally sourced carbon-neutral leather. Whisky, of course, is the final defining component; The Macallan master whisky maker Kirsteen Campbell (who also spoke to us about the release of The Reach, The Macallan’s oldest ever whisky, earlier this year) developed the flavour profile following a visit to Bentley Motors in Crewe, where she was inspired by their shared passion for creativity, craftsmanship and innovation.

Together, the six key materials form a unique concept that defies the classic, vertical aesthetic of a whisky bottle and reflects the horizontal trajectory of the automotive world. Traditional craftsmanship and materials are met with cutting-edge technology and visionary design that pushes the boundaries of luxury whisky presentation.

Bentley’s product and lifestyle design manager, Chris Cooke, comments: ‘This was a real collaboration between two design teams which sit in very different industries. In the automotive business, we are obsessed with surfaces, form language and reflections, while the whisky industry is focused on craft, attention to detail and flavour. So, for both teams, it was something brand new that we hadn’t done before which was incredibly exciting.’

The Macallan Horizon is a beautiful object in itself. Lit from within, and cast in a warm amber glow, with light used as a key element that interplays with the materials – the piece has no standing base and features a glass bottle with a dynamic 180-degree twist.

Says Cooke: ‘If we imagine what the future might look like, it is what we are doing today.’

INFORMATION

The Macallan Horizon will be available as a whisky product from Summer 2023.

Information regarding pricing and availability of The Macallan Horizon single malt whisky will be shared closer to its release on themacallan.com and bentleymotors.com

Some cars tap into our primal emotions. The Bentley Continental GT Speed does this effortlessly through automobile beauty, artistry, and extraordinary vigour. Bentley motors’ latest car is the marque’s most powerful in its 101-year history. It is also a classic grand tourer – happy to leisurely cruise scenic Sicilian roads, navigate the narrow twisting lanes flanked by vineyards that lead to the volcanic Etna, then power at incredible speed along the makeshift Bentley racetrack at the abandoned Nato base at Comiso Airport. 

We are in Sicily to test the Speed and the Italian island feels somewhat fitting. The rugged landscape scorched by the summer’s extreme heat, the storied ancient hilltop towns and villages where so many civilisations have walked and shaped, the capricious mount Etna that gives this fertile land its nutrients, hills that also gave birth to the mafia who, as landowners, monopolised the lucrative lemon farming.

These contrasts help explain a car that is at once an elegant luxurious gran turismo and a meaty performance beast.

The Continental GT Speed story began in 2007 with a car that was based on the regular Conti GT but also inspired by the 3-litre Bentley Speeds of the 1920s. This latest third-generation continues the story. Much work has therefore gone into refining its performance and handling. The 6.0-litre 12-cylinder engine is unique to Bentley and delivers an impressive 659-horsepower and 900Nm of torque, can speed up to 208mph and reach 60mph in as little as 3.5 seconds.

Bentley Continental GT Speed wears its technology lightly

Yet at no stage in our drive do these big numbers intimidate or overshadow the experience. Rather, the Speed wears its technology lightly. ‘It is a hugely powerful beast, but you don’t need to make races at the traffic lights,’ says Bentley’s new director of design Andreas Mindt. ‘We leave that to Lamborghini,’ he notes of the sportscar maker in the Volkswagen Group which also owns Bentley. ‘You race Lamborghinis to show off their high revving and high spoilers. Bentley is completely the opposite of this. It’s a great place to be.’

Adjustable air suspension helps the Speed glide over most surfaces, with the bumpy southern Sicilian roads offering plenty of opportunities to test this out. Unique to the car is the active anti-roll, which keeps it level through corners, while the all-wheel steering system enhances the dynamic handling in the three Bentley driving modes. The Speed is packed with advanced driver assist technology too, and has the largest brakes fitted to any production car. Meanwhile, the engineers have successfully modified the acoustics by toning down the unpleasantries – body vibration, road noises – while amplifying the fun sporty notes.

Discreet visual flourishes

The Speed design continues the visual story of the quieter Continental GT in coupé and convertible styles but with extra flourishes – none of which is too garish or macho. These include a dark tint radiator and lower bumper grille, sculpted sports sills, a dark tint radiator matrix and discreet Speed badging in chrome on the front fender. The tyres are 22in Speed wheels in bright silver, with the option of a dark tint or black gloss finish. Jewelled versions of the fuel and oil filler caps are standard on the Speed, while illuminated Bentley treadplates to the sills are a nod to its performance credentials.

Seven roof colours are available on the convertible Speed, including a modern take on the traditional tweed. The mechanics are Bentley’s ‘z-fold’ which seamlessly blends the fabric top with the metal body and contributes, we are told, to a three-decibel reduction in overall noise levels compared to its predecessor. With unexpected extreme rainfall on day two of our Sicilian road trip, we can confirm the roof performed extremely well.

Inside, the cabin is tactile and ergonomically sound. You can sense the presence of the craftsmen and women of Crewe here, with surfaces that are covered in diamond quilted soft squishy leather and single-piece wooden veneers. There is a vast menu of materials to pick, including 26 hide hues which can be mixed with Alcantara. Customers can choose an open pore veneer of dark burr walnut, crown cut walnut or Koa, surface the centre console in a dark tint aluminium trim, or for the ultimate tailored experience, visit the Bentley Mulliner team for inspiration.

Material research

The Speed may be staying safely within the boundaries of traditional luxury materials, yet Mindt’s team are exploring ecological fabrics and practices for the upcoming Bentley cars. He explains some of his ideas: ‘We want to reduce chrome in our cars, look to alternatives to leather, and make sure our leather suppliers follow the standards of the Leather Working Group,’ the environmental body which Bentley joined recently.

He says the marque is considering working with reclaimed woods such as discarded Venetian briccole (timber mooring poles). ‘These poles bring with them imperfections which then tell other stories. You can turn all these elements into their own beautiful narratives.’

The Continental GT Speed will be made in limited numbers at the Bentley facility in Crewe. Certified carbon neutral by the Carbon Trust, the factory harvests its own rainwater and solar energy, and recycles where possible, while the marque is working towards making its whole business net zero by 2030.

This means, from the next five year on, the company will no longer make gasoline-powered motor cars. And so, the Speed seems like a suitable farewell ode to the combustion age as Bentley heads towards an electric future.

INFORMATION

Bentley Continental GT Speed, from £209,000 for the coupé and £230,900 for the convertible 

bentleymotors.com

Jaguar Classic C-Type Continuation

Jaguar has an archive brimming with legendary machines, with a strong secondary market of restorers and refurbishers who keep their most famous cars on the road and up to date. Unsurprisingly, the company also wants a piece of that action, established the Jaguar Land Rover Classic Works facility to maintain, enhance and recreate legendary models from the two brands, from the original 2-door 70s-era Range Rover to the Jaguar E-Type, D-Type and XKSS. This Spring, Classic Works is launching the E-Type 60 Collection – a pair of open and closed examples of the Series 1 E-Type to celebrate the car’s 60th anniversary. It’s also delved into its racing history with eight examples of the Jaguar C-Type, based on the car that won Le Mans in 1953. Authenticity is key – there’s a strong racing community for cars like this – so original engineering drawings have been deployed along with CAD technology to ensure the new car is worthy of the name. 

jaguar.com/classic

Ecurie Ecosse LM-C 

Jaguar aren’t the only ones with an interest in their past. Ecurie Ecosse is the descendant of one of Scotland’s most successful private racing teams, best known for their use of Jaguar XK120s and C-Types in the 50s and 60s and their Flag Metallic Blue racing colours. The revived company also stakes a claim to the C-Type, dubbing their precise recreation the Ecurie Ecosse LM-C. Handmade in Coventry and finished off at the company’s Henley HQ, the LM-C is a very individual choice.

ecurieecosse.com

Callum Designs: Vanquish 25 

Before he made his at Jaguar, Ian Callum was head of design at Aston Martin, arguably setting the company’s off on its current design direction with the DB7, original Vanquish and early work on Vantage and DB9. Now the Scottish designer has his own consultancy, Callum Design, launching with a very personal project. The Vanquish 25 marks the quarter century of that original aluminium-structured Aston, with Callum going back to his original design to nip and tuck any details that were squeezed out by cost considerations in the original car. With prices starting at £350,000, plus a donor car, the finishes and fittings are as exquisite as you’d hope. 

callumdesigns.com/the-aston-martin-vanquish-25

Superperformance GT40

Superperformance is a North Carolina-based specialist manufacturer of racing specials, capable of producing near-identical copies of cars like the AC Cobra and Shelby Daytona. The legal heirs of the racing legacy of Carroll Shelby, the late American driver and engineer, every Superperformance model qualifies for classic racing events. Not only that, but the company provided a full set of Ford GT40s for use in the 2019 film Le Mans ’66 (also known as Ford vs Ferrari). The company’s meticulously prepared GT40s are available through Le Mans Coupes in the UK and can be prepared for either track or road use. 

superformance.com
lemanscoupes.com

Bizzarrini 5300 GT Revival Corsa 24/65

A bold new venture to bring back one of Italy’s lesser-known automotive icons, the return of Bizzarrini was announced in late 2020. The marque’s first car is the Bizzarrini 5300 GT Revival of a 60s icon, originally designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro and Piero Drogo. Giotto Bizzarrini was a maverick genius whose career had a huge impact on both Ferrari and Lamborghini before he struck out on his own with a series of extravagantly outrageous road and race cars. The 24 Revival models will be perfect replicas of the car that won the 5-litre class at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1965. The newly reborn company won’t always specialise in recreations – an all-new car is also in the works.

bizzarrini.com

Aston Martin Works

Masters of the art of Continuation cars, Aston Martin is currently nearing the end of a production run of its DB5 Goldfinger Continuation car, billed by some as the most expensive piece of film memorabilia ever made. Twenty-five examples of these gadget-laden machines have been made, aimed squarely at those who never quite outgrew their love of the Dinky toys original. At £3.3m each, the cars – developed in close collaboration with EON Productions, keepers of the Bond flame – are expected to remain cossetted collectors’ items, with their film-ready gadgets wheeled out for special occasions. Built at Aston Martin Works on the site of the company’s original factory in Newport Pagnell, the DB5 comes hot on the heels of the DB4 GT Continuation and the DB4 GT Zagato Continuation models. The latter came packaged alongside an all-new Zagato model, the DBS GT Zagato, to form the DBZ Centenary Collection in honour of Zagato’s 100th anniversary in 2019. This particular pairing was priced at £6m for two, a cut above the relatively modest £1.5m charged for the DB4 GT Continuation. Aston’s archives are over-flowing with valuable examples of automotive art, so expect other limited series to emerge in the future.

astonmartinworks.com

Bentley Blower

Bentley are new to the recreation game. Choosing to step back even further in time than Aston or Bizzarrini, the company has recreated the ‘Blower’, the mighty 1920s-era racing car that cemented Bentley’s association with brawn and power. Twelve examples of the Bentley Blower Continuation Series will be hand-built by the Mulliner workshop in Crewe, all based on a meticulous deconstruction and re-build of the supercharged 1929 4½-litre “Blower” that once belonged to Sir Tim Birkin, a pivotal figure in the inter-war era of dashing and daring racing drivers. Every nut and bolt was laser scanned and 3D modelled and a full toolkit of 20s-era moulds and jig has been used to shape the metal of the dozen customer cars.  

bentleymotors.com

Bentley Motors has a long-standing partnership with Naim Audio, the British high-end manufacturer that is responsible for the systems that go into Bentley’s lavishly appointed automobiles. Since 2008, every new Bentley model has required a bespoke audio system. Naim has parlayed the know-how and techniques gleaned from packaging audio into a standalone wireless system, the Mu-so, a home audio solution that pairs minimalist styling with big sound. Back in 2011, Naim joined forces with loudspeaker manufacturers Focal. 

That partnership is now being extended with a Bentley collaboration, with a beautifully packaged and presented set of Focal Radiance headphones and a Bentley Special Edition Mu-so. ‘We’ve worked incredibly closely with Bentley on every aspect of performance and styling since 2008,’ says Simon Matthews, Group Design Director at Focal and Naim Audio, ‘These special edition Naim speaker and Focal headphones followed the same, collaborative process.’ Bentley’s emphasis on materials and techniques has been allowed to shine. With soft leather supplied by British leathermaker Pittards, laser cut metal, copper highlights and sustainable wood, the devices draw direct links to Bentley’s design approach.

‘Every element is designed to delight and built to last,’ Matthews says, ‘we aim to be the polar opposite of the "throwaway society".’ This emphasis on longevity also characterises Bentley’s recent design focus. ‘Bacalar and EXP 100 GT are examples of the way that Bentley wants to work with each customer to create a product that is a real reflection of our aspirations in sustainability, in quality, but also in something that is unique,’ says Brett Boydell, Bentley’s Head of Interior Design, ‘it’s a tactile journey as well — these are products to admire and feel, as well as hear.’

Taking the Bentley experience out of the cars was another welcome area of exploration. ‘The Focal Radiance headphones emulate the rarefied privacy and comfort enjoyed in a Bentley cabin,’ says Matthews. For Boydell, customisation and personalisation are key. ‘Our customers have the ability to collaborate with the design team to create their own cars to their exact specification, through Bentley’s Co-Creation service,’ Boydell explains, ‘The unique colour schemes of these new Naim and Focal products reflect this customer and designer collaboration.’

Both devices have material qualities that reflect the emphasis on sustainable materials at Bentley. ‘For example, the Ayous African hardwood of the Mu-so is also a sustainable option, stained and lacquered to reflect the dark aesthetics of Bentley’s river-wood,’ says Boydell, who also points out the copper detailing. ‘The material is highlighted on the front cover of the Mu-so, which is reflective of the copper dust that was pushed into the grain structure of the wood to both highlight and stabilise the material to be used both structurally and decoratively within our cars. Naim has done an amazing job of mirroring that aesthetic principle in the font covering of the speaker,’ he adds.

The laser-cut diamond pattern on both Mu-so and the headphones is also a direct nod to Bentley interior design. ‘I think the next step for us is to look beyond a stereo system and into the complete user experience to be associated with every drive,’ says Boydell, ‘Energy and excitement inspires and drives us on both sides and will help us continue to strive for peak audio performance, as well as exquisite design and detailing.’

INFORMATION
bentleymotors.com
naimaudio.com

2020 is Bentley’s centenary year and before pandemic planning became everyone’s focus, the company had a number of special events, launches and new models lined up. For the most part, it’s managed to keep to its schedule, even if the usual glamorous launch itineraries have been swapped out for socially distanced virtual events and car loans. 

This year also saw the retirement of Bentley’s Mulsanne model, the company’s former flagship. Cut from a different cloth than its suite of core models, the Bentley Mulsanne was a true throwback to an earlier era, hand-built on a bespoke platform and incorporating the final version of Bentley’s venerable L-Series V8 engine, originally introduced in 1959. Without the Mulsanne, and with the first all-electric Bentley coming ever closer (a date of 2025 has been suggested), the company is in a state of transformation, simultaneously trying to shape a more contemporary and sustainable definition of luxury, while taking care not to shed the sporting luxury ethos that has defined the brand for 100 years.

This summer saw the introduction of a radically revised Bentayga, Bentley’s first foray into the SUV market. The car was originally launched in 2015 and although it has been a strong sales success, it’s never quite shaken its slightly compromised aesthetic image; the Bentayga began life as an ugly duckling. It had much in common with the original Porsche Cayenne, in that it fell short of conveying the key characteristics of its brand, despite containing all the key ingredients. 

Since the original Bentayga’s debut, Bentley has gone on to create a triumphant new version of its Continental Grand Tourer, available both in droptop and coupe form with a choice of W12 (coupe only) or V8. It also produced a new generation Flying Spur, the four-door limousine that takes the reigns from the Mulsanne as the new flagship. Both GT and Flying Spur are effortlessly elegant, exceptionally powerful automobiles that also manage to be desirable luxury objects. Can the overhauled Bentayga keep up? 

The new car is no longer the ugly duckling of the flock. The detailing has been substantially overhauled, inside and out, with a new nose and new tailgate, both of which draw on the svelte but authoritative forms of the coupe and saloon. In total,1,000 changes differentiate the car from the 20,000 examples already sold (accounting for nearly half of all annual Bentley sales). Inside, there’s a welcome update of the touchscreen interface, bringing it more in line with the best offerings from elsewhere in the VW Group, along with digital dials, wireless phone charging, and an updated removable touchscreen for rear passengers. It goes without saying that the craft, detail and quality remain exceptionally high; this is one of the great contemporary automotive interiors. In 2+2 format (a mildly infuriating waste of space, given this car’s massive scale), every passenger is given a little kingdom of their own, a world of wood and leather. 

On the road, the V8 Bentayga embodies that most fundamental of Bentley qualities – effortless power. You sit high, simultaneously commanding over and isolated from all that surrounds you. Refinement is second-to-none, with the engine relegated to a distant hushed rumble at low speeds. Nosing the beast around tight city streets isn’t without its perils, but the cameras and sensors do a good job of guiding you away from embarrassment and eternal YouTube infamy. On highways and fast A roads, the Bentayga is just as much a competent grand tourer as any other Bentley, albeit slightly less fuel efficient (relatively speaking) and not quite as well suited to fast twists and turns. What it does best is blast its way towards the distant horizon, enveloping its occupants with an unassailable sense of power and tradition. 

The Continental GT coupe shares the Bentayga’s spirit but presents it in a different form. Both cars have a mechanical complexity akin to that of the highest-end audio or mechanical wristwatch - admirable to certain quarters but baffling to the rest of us. These are truly the last of the V8s. Bentley is working furiously on every aspect of electrification, hoping that the switch from internal combustion to battery is as seamless as possible. Both GT and Bentayga have reached their apogee; it remains to be seen where next to go.

INFORMATION

Bentley Continental GT V8, from £151,800
Bentley Bentayga V8, from £133,255

bentleymotors.com

The allure of shiny new things has certainly been tempered by the global shut-down, but desire is only diminished, not entirely dispatched. We can look, but not touch. The virtual showroom has been an essential means of specifying cars for many years now, with ‘configurators' proliferating across every brand that allow you to paint, trim, specify and spin the model of your choice to an exacting specification. Ordering is then a click away, with some companies going further by giving you an immersive VR experience of ‘your' design before pulling the trigger on production. But what of luxury brands? Almost since the automobile's inception, luxury has equated to bespoke, a process that demands hand-holding and special treatment along every stage. Bentley are diversifying their traditional online offering into a service that goes a little bit further, with actual interaction between potential customer and one of the car-maker's design team. Brett Boydell, head of interior design at Bentley, explains how it works. ‘We're effectively allowing customers to directly access members of the design team,' he says, ‘we’re always looking for ways to improve the customer experience and they’re often bamboozled by the amount of options available.’

The Bentley Co-Creation program began long before phrases like ‘self-isolation' had even entered the language. However, as Boydell notes, ‘it was always intended to be a digital process. We have to combine these appointments with our day to day work and although this is more challenging with different time zones, Co-Creation is something that can be expanded into the virtual world.’ The original system was about extending Bentley's personal relationship with potential customers. After making contact through their dealer or the Bentley Network app, the customer is invited to take an interactive survey that results in their very own mood board, showing their interests, favourite colours, materials, combinations, atmospheres, etc., from a stock selection of imagery chosen by Bentley’s own design team. ‘We then create a specification alongside this mood board, using their suggestions and send it back for comment,’ Boydell explains.

‘Sometimes they just say we’ve done it. But other times it starts a conversation about making a much more daring statement.’ Typically, this involves creating a screen sharing session and setting up Bentley’s online configurator software so that so a designer can ‘sit’ alongside the customer as they run through the options. ‘Of course, they can also work by emails and texts if they like,’ Boydell says, but the instant feedback available through the website is the best approach. ‘We want customers to not only enjoy the creative process but also to love their cars. They’re an expression of their personality,’ says Boydell, ‘where we often find this approach is most successful is when we’re launching a new car, simply because there are no physical examples of the model on hand to distract them.’ While customers like the design-led process because of the confidence it engenders, it also emboldens Bentley’s many worldwide dealers. It’s hard to conceive buying such a bespoke object as instant gratification, but some markets demand a healthy stock of vehicles for exactly this reason.

‘We have to uphold the standards of Bentley,’ Boydell concludes, ‘it’s a different individual experience for each customer.’ There are a vast number of combinations; the new Flying Spur’s interior has 17 main hide colours, 11 secondary colours and 5 interior colour splits, for example. Having a designer on hand is the ultimate in customer service, pointing the way towards bold ideas and – gently – reigning in more outlandish ideas. But if even that’s not enough, Bentley’s digital co-creation team is more than happy to hand a customer on to the Mulliner department, where the sky truly is the limit. The customer, after all, is always right.

INFORMATION

bentleymotors.com

Bentley has a long history of building luxury cars, but its coach-building tradition – making very small numbers of vehicle bodies and interiors for discerning global customers – hasn’t been a regular part of its product offering since the 1950s. Now with the launch of the Bentley Bacalar, that tradition is returning by offering super-rare models for those with the financial clout and aesthetic taste to desire it. Coachbuilt is one of three new divisions of Bentley’s Mulliner business, the others being Mulliner Classic, where new versions of old Bentley icons like the 1929 Blower can be recreated using authentic techniques and materials and Mulliner Collection, offering personalised details within Bentley’s modern-day production models.

Wallpaper* had an exclusive chat with Bentley’s design director Stefan Sielaff to find out more about the new strategy and its first example: the £1.5m (plus local taxes) 659hp W12, two-seat, roofless luxury Grand Tourer Bacalar, limited to just 12 examples and featuring almost 150,000 artisanal stitches on each seat and 5000-year old reclaimed English wood within its interior.

Wallpaper*: Very limited edition cars by Bentley haven’t been offered in the modern era until the Bacalar. When was the last one?

Stefan Sielaff: There were some special cars for the Sultan of Brunei in the 1980s but they weren’t part of an organised plan. This coach-building idea goes back to the activities of Mulliner many decades ago, for example the 1952 Bentley Mulliner Continental R-Type.

W*: With such bespoke exterior panels and a very different interior treatment how long did the project take to develop?

SS: We started sketching and then building the Bacalar after we finished the EXP 100 GT concept car in the middle of last year. What we showed is literally what the customer will get. It is road-legal, certified and homologated. This was tricky for us, because we had to follow all the rules and legislation of our production car processes, which can take up to five years, and did everything in nine months.

W*: Where did you take inspiration from the EXP 100 GT concept?

SS: From both the exterior and interior, like having two headlights rather than four and with the running daylight light bar through them. We also took inspiration from the EXP 100 GT in the Bacalar’s three-dimensional rear lights with this bone structure inside. On the interior we used more sustainable materials, like 5000-year old river wood and wool tweed from the Scottish border. 

W*: Why is there no roof for the Bacalar?

SS: It connects the Bacalar to our historic cars like the Blower, also two seats, no roof.

W*: Are you thinking about a car cover at least?

SS: At the moment, no, but it’s a really good point. I’ll take this inspiration across to my colleagues at Bentley Mulliner. As we deliver the first cars at the end of this year we still have time to think about covers. 

W*: Will each of the 12 Bacalars be different from each other?

SS: Every customer wants something absolutely individual and we are doing ‘co-creation’ sessions with the customers and our designers to really discuss what they want. I think one customer wants to go for the show car specification while others might want something more conservative or extrovert: there’s a wide range. For sure, every car will be very different to the next one. 

W*: Each seat has nearly 150,000 handcrafted stitches. How are they designed and can you have too many?

SS: [Laughs] One of my favourite parts on this car is the seat embroidery because it’s extremely modern but also a very traditional craft. We can literally walk over the street to our people at the sewing machines with an idea and they come back after two days with an upholstered seat. We then look at it and modify it. This is our advantage at Bentley, we have craftsmen on site with know-how that we can use on big production number cars and also now especially for Bentley Mulliner’s coach-building. 

INFORMATION
bentleymotors.com

The future of cars is a hot topic these days. As the traditional auto world addresses some fundamental questions of its validity in the next chapter of mobility, the luxury makers are simultaneously gauging their place in this unknown world. The EXP 100 GT does just this. Bentley’s latest conceptual study celebrates the marque’s centenary whilst speculating its future. It forms an engaging dialogue for the company in the age of clean, autonomous driving.



The EXP 100 GT is a Bentley grand tourer for an imaginary world of 2035. It is all-electric, and can be driven or self-drive. ‘It represents the kind of cars we want to make in the future,’ says Bentley’s Stefan Sielaff. The company’s director of design explains that he feels Bentley cars will always want to be driven – his job is to provide the option. ‘With this car, our customers can be autonomously driven, and then when they get out of the city, they can experience the thrill of driving. It is about being given the freedom to decide. That’s true luxury.’

The EXP 100 GT is long, very long. Its feline form is an impressive 5.8 metres in length and 2.4-metre width. The distinctive rear haunch is informed by the evocative 1950s R-Type Continental, and the Bentley Blower racing car has inspired the round headlights overlapping the grille. Then the copper and aluminium elements, we are told, are a nod to the company founder, the engineer W.O Bentley who chose such materials to create the alloy for his World War One BR1 Aero engine piston.



So far, the story follows a classic motor car design theme. It is conceptually and materially where the EXP 100 really makes a distinctive statement. Despite its size, the car is relatively light due to the extensive use of aluminium and carbon fibre for the exterior structure. Copper replaces the traditional chrome for the decorative elements inside and out. Sielaff feels that it makes complete sense to use this sustainable material instead of the much less ecologically friendly chrome. He muses, ‘in the future, I want to leave the copper to breathe as the patina itself will become part of the story.’

The team have also approached lighting in a new way. For this, Bentley worked with light artist Moritz Waldemeyer who approached the project from a non-automotive perspective theatrically, so the illumination starts at the matrix grille and flying B mascot, works its way along the central spine of the car and into the cabin itself. The ‘horseshoe’ section of the boot features a three-dimensional OLED screen, which Sielaff says will be a technical possibility soon, on which lighting blends in with the rear lamps. Waldemeyer’s lighting also helps emphasise the warm greens in the exterior colour, describing it as a hugely technical project given the sheer number of lights he had to manipulate.



The exterior paint, Compass, is made from recycled rice husk ash, an industrial by-product that would normally end up in landfills. The cabin also offers an insight into how the car industry can work with sustainable materials that are new to luxury motoring, including 5,000-year-old copper infused ‘river wood’ (recovered from the bottom of peat bogs), natural leather with a light aniline preparation of only 2 per cent pigment spray, and a textile derived from the surplus grapes and branches left over from winemaking yet still offers the feel of leather. The infotainment interface is made from Cumbria Crystal, the embroidered cotton interior surfaces use the old quilting trapunto method for irregular raised areas, and the wool carpets are sourced from local farms. Sielaff believes there is so much that the world of luxury design can do to champion sustainability. ‘We will focus on finding materials that are sourced locally. I see craftsmanship as a counterbalance to the digital world, and natural materials create more of a warm, lounge feeling.’

The interior focus is on the occupants’ wellbeing, a sanctuary for working and relaxing, so every surface you see, smell and touch is considered, crafted to be soft and tactile. It also smells incredible. Working with perfumery 12.29, Bentley has developed a unique scent for this car – a subtle blend of sandalwood and fresh moss. Interior light is harvested through the glass roof embedded with prisms to collect light and transfer it into the cabin using fibre optics. Air quality is constantly monitored too, with a purification system in the boot cleaning the air before it enters the cabin.



There is an AI personal assistant on-board this Bentley to take care of all your needs, including battery charging. It is controlled through the illuminated crystal centre piece and will respond to hand gestures towards the interface to intuitively interpret your commands. It can also anticipate passenger needs and configure the seating layout to complement the driving or autonomous position. The reactive seat surfaces respond to your position during driving, automatically offering more support when the need is sensed. Biometric sensors, embedded throughout the car, track eye and head movements, even blood pressure, and adjust your position depending on whether you’re driving or using the autonomous mode.

‘The EXP 100 GT is a canvas for what makes the future of luxury,’ says Sielaff. 'The whole subject around sustainability and social responsibility will be a poster for Bentley. Without forgetting our heritage of craft, this concept will push us to generate a more modern design language.’

INFORMATION

extraordinaryjourneys.bentley; bentleymotors.com

It is Bentley’s centenary year. Founded in July 1919, the car maker has weathered changing times and changing ownership to become the best-selling luxury manufacturer in the world. But times are set to change yet again. Our task is to fly half-way around the world and back again in order to extol the virtues of Bentley’s first hybrid car, sampling it in the environs that the company has deemed to be its most likely habitat, Silicon Valley. At the same time, Bentley is also unveiling the V8-powered versions of its acclaimed new Continental GT, hitherto only available with a giant W12 engine.

Both cars are unequivocally Bentleys, bearing all the hallmarks and qualities the brand has gathered around it over the past 15 or so years, but they are very different in style and execution. Yet paradoxically, it is the conventionally-powered car that is more relevant to the company’s immediate future. In Adrian Hallmark, Bentley has a true motor industry veteran as a CEO, a man with extensive experience in a career that began at VW and Porsche. He had a stint at Bentley during the pioneering early years of VW ownership before moving to global strategy director at JLR. Hallmark has been at the helm of Bentley since late 2017.

Since he started, the company has had to weather challenges of legislation and supply, culminating in a worrying dip in sales (just like practically every other car maker on the planet). But Hallmark has a five-step plan to fight back, starting with a radical streamlining of the company’s hallowed production facility in Crewe, where wizards of space and time managed to shave 25 per cent off the typical time it takes to build a Bentley.

The company is also poised to grow, bouncing back from the sales dip with new cars like the ones we’re here to drive. Most importantly, it will have to navigate yet another round of emissions legislation, the most draconian yet (this will be step three). That’ll partly be tackled by the introduction of plug-in hybrid variants of every available Bentley by 2023 (assuming that the defiantly ‘unhybridisable’ Mulsanne has finished production by that point). The final point in his plan is to deliver the first pure electric Bentley – ‘by 2025 at the latest,’ according to Hallmark, who adds that ‘it has to be a true Bentley, we can’t just take a [Porsche] Taycan and ‘Bentlify’ it.’

So, interesting times. The new Bentayga Hybrid is the company’s first toe in the pool of this electrified future. The Bentayga is undeniably divisive. Launched in 2015, Bentley’s first SUV has attracted the most criticism for its looks, which transcend mere brutish-ness and err on the side of uncomfortable. It’s not exactly a masterpiece of packaging, either, with that big body enclosing a relatively cosy passenger compartment. The need to combine a new V6 petrol engine with a battery back and the assorted motors and control systems encroaches still further on the available space, although the mechanical systems and their myriad complexities are hidden away with typical thoroughness.

The flagship Mulsanne aside, the announcement of the new Flying Spur means the Bentayga is now the oldest model in Bentley's fleet. Although hybrid capability was baked into this its platform from the outset, it is still compromised by weight and packaging. The stats bear this out; the 311-volt battery can theoretically run 16 miles on pure electric power, at a maximum speed of 84 mph, thanks to the 128PS E-Motor (equivalent to about 126 bhp). Combined with the 360PS V6, and the car will dispatch 60 mph in a credible 5.2 seconds and run on to 158 mph. Although this top speed is largely irrelevant in the real world, it’s worth pointing out that this is the ‘slowest’ Bentley since the original 80s-era Turbo R.

The meticulous standards of craft and assembly are also translated into the mechanical workings; everything is seamless and fuss-free. The same can't be said for the interface, which has been leapfrogged by its svelte new GT sibling. And should a car really try to be all things to all people? SUVs have spent the best part of two decades trying to prove that Sport and Utility are a natural fit, yet we're increasingly seeing less actual need for either. In stark contrast is the new Continental GT, now with a V8 engine (a unit shared with Porsche and Audi) for the first time. Since 2003, 70,000 GTs have been delivered and there’s broad consensus that the newest generation is not only the best Bentley ever, but also a class leader if you're in the market for a traditional styled grand tourer.

There's much more to the GT than mere tradition. For a start, there's a grace and purity to the form, coupled with a lightweight structure that allows Bentley to load up on gadgets and fine materials with a devil may care attitude. The interior is spacious and majestically appointed, with a full suite of properly up to date technology in a surprisingly traditional layout, if you discount the party trick revolving touch screen that can be optioned for the centre of the dash. That brand-new platform promises even more in the next few years, with an as-yet-unannounced hybrid variant that could just be the Holy Grail of performance, range and refinement.

Bentley is hinting strongly that grand touring will be the core of its future, with titanic performance simply taken for granted. There's no doubt that our demand for higher and higher speeds is simply unsustainable in any number of ways (the V8 tops out at 198 mph and reaches 62 in an impressive four seconds flat), but Bentley's customers want the best. For now, that means combining grace and space with pace. Unlike its SUV stablemate, the Continental GT V8 does all three without compromise and looks set to win the efficiency stakes as well.

INFORMATION
Bentley Bentayga Hybrid, from £113,500. Bentley Continental GT V8, from £148,800. bentleymotors.com

Bentley Motors was born on 10 July 1919 – its mission, to conquer continents in speed, in luxury, and in the ultimate gran turismo. And in the spirit of its centenary, the marque’s latest grand tourer, the Flying Spur, comes replete with a ‘Flying B’ mascot that progressively looks ahead and into the future. This is only the fourth Flying Spur to be created at Crewe – the first being the brilliant 1928 model, followed by the new era 2005 car and its successor from 2013. Built on a new lightweight aluminium structure, the 2020 Flying Spur is lighter and more powerful than the one it replaces. The 6.0-litre, twin-turbocharged W12 Bentley engine powering this grand saloon offers 635ps (625bhp) and 900 Nm of torque, with a top speed of 207mph and zero to 62mph possible in just 3.7 seconds.

Crucially, the Flying Spur is a canvas of sorts for showcasing Bentley’s design skills and the artistry of its Mulliner craft people who seemingly can make anything possible. This includes the novel three-dimensional diamond quilted leather and wood door inserts. The new car also features a novel grille design – a gloss black radiator matrix with bright chrome surround and vertical vanes. Wallpaper* met with the Bentley design director Stephan Sielaff at the centre in Crewe to discover more.

Wallpaper*: How did you start sketching a Bentley grand tourer that is an expression of the marque today?
Stefan Sielaff: It took us over four years to conceive this car, so it is a little like giving birth to a baby. The design and engineering teams at Bentley really worked together like family on this project. The Flying Spur shape is perhaps old-school in that it is a four-door limousine. So, the design is about expressing performance and luxury where art meets technology.

W*: The Flying Spur shares much of the visual language of the latest Continental GT – an older sibling, more poised, perhaps a touch conservative. How closely did you reference the sportier model?
SS: Yes, we wanted to create a stronger family design DNA. For instance, the three-dimensional crystal glass light theme we introduced with the Continental feature here. As you know we are evolving our design. Performance and luxury are at the heart of our identity, but so is craftsmanship – and we want to show our customer the art of craft, the human touch.

W*: The previous model appeared to be solely a chauffeured car. And although this Flying Spur shares similar proportions, it feels equally a driver’s vehicle. How does the design reflect this duel identity?
SS: The car has a new proportion, but the differences are subtle. What we did was to move the front wheel a few millimetres forward to allow for a shorter overhang and therefore better proportions. This Flying Spur is only 80mm longer than the previous car, but this small tweak has altered our perception. And what this does visually is make it a driver’s car rather than only a chauffeured limousine. Also, we worked on the Flying Spur as you would a sculpture to include the Bentley signature lines, powerline and haunch. Yet, whereas they were connected in the previous Flying Spur, here we separated these two lines for a very different proportion.

W*: The new grille design also gives the Flying Spur a completely different personality. Why did you decide on a radical move?
SS: The structure is entirely reshaped to include these vertical vanes sitting in front of the matrix design, which we took from the sportier Continental. We offer customers two design options – the black matrix to pump it up and feel sportier, or the full high-chrome spec. The unusual shape makes the car look more majestic; it says this is a mix of performance and luxury. Also remember, the design is in our DNA and tributes the 1957 S1 Continental Spur.

W*: You say the ‘Flying B’ mascot represents the Bentley centenary. What was the creative thinking behind this?
SS: It is a major highlight for us, taking two years to develop with 15 designers from our team participating. We really liked one of the sketches that showed a falcon landing on snow with a forward-leaning beak. We wanted to create more dynamism than the former mascot which felt static. The design symbolises the challenges facing us, so it needed to look proud and into the future.

W*: The cabin is a fusion of tradition and modernity, craft and technology, with all the intricate details which makes the Flying Spur unmistakeably a Bentley. How did you evolve the previous design?
SS: The customer must immediately feel that they are in a Bentley. So, we have the typical ‘wings’ incorporated into the centre dashboard, and all the user elements help form a strong family link. A highlight are the new diamond-themed air vents, for which we had to create our own software to achieve the 5,000-plus individual diamond shapes. We can even customise these for customers who want more ‘bling-bling’.

W*: The driver interface continues the Continental story with a mix of analogue and digital, and with the novel rotating display which swivels from an informative panel to a simple clear space. Is this a theme you are adopting on your cars?
SS: Yes, it comes from our new thinking: luxury means less is more. A customer is driving home from work, he or she just wants to listen to their music and relax, and they most likely know the way and don’t need too much visual noise. Also as the car is designed to be chauffeured and driven, we have created two zones with a remote control at the rear for passengers to specify their space. We are offering a wide range of interior colour options and it’s interesting to see how the colour layout can alter the character of this car.

W*: There seems to be quite a variety of quilting designs happening inside the Flying Spur. How has this very Bentley feature evolved for this car?
SS: The seats feature the diamond quilting theme we explored in the Continental but with more of a rhythm. Three-dimensional quilted leather and wood door panels are now available, thanks to the positive feedback from the press and customers. We feel it is a modern interpretation of our traditional design. The wood, especially, generates a very rich ambience; it looks like something precious that you won’t throwaway. I feel it represents a step towards sustainability.

W*: Talking of sustainability, how do you see the next chapter for Bentley design?
SS: We must push Bentley design forward a lot to make it more and more youthful and dynamic. Our times are becoming more interesting; our customer demands are changing. It is a very holistic subject because design is influenced by the change in society and by technology. In terms of the latter we will work with different propulsion systems which will give us positive possibilities as we can illuminate our design language. You can make big steps in design when you make big steps in technology.

W*: On 10 July, you will be revealing a radical concept to represent the next phase for Bentley. What can you say at this stage?
SS: The materials story will be very exciting. We have discussed finding new sustainable leathers and working with textiles, wool and cashmere. Going forward we will focus on finding materials that are locally sourced. We are excited to be experimenting with an Italian company to condense the surplus grapes and branches from winemaking and turning this into an interesting material. Changes in society and the whole subject around sustainability and social responsibility will be a poster for Bentley. Without forgetting our heritage of craft, it will push us to generate a more modern design language. §

INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Bentley Motors website

The new Bentley Continental GTC has a strong claim to be the world’s finest convertible. Others might be more luxurious, nimble or even faster (although not by very much), but only in the Bentley is such a convincing total package. First impressions of this imposing motor car are that the interior is as cosseting as the exterior is imperious. Make no mistake, for regardless of how anachronistic that term might be, a ‘motor car’ is what this is, through and through.

The Continental is sometimes described by company insiders as Bentley’s ‘bread and butter’, the core model that marked its rebirth back in 2003 and which now, in a much altered, improved, and enhanced new version, continues to be the most recognisable product from the Crewe-based manufacturer.

For many, the Continental GT is the physical manifestation of what a large, expensive, luxury sports car should look like. It ticks all the boxes in the mind of the viewer, for better or for worse. Always handsome, but now tantalisingly close to classically beautiful, the car has lost none of its lustre in droptop form. For about six months, Prospective customers have done without the choice of an open-topped Conti for several months, a significant absence in the line-up and not the kind of limitless choice this type of buyer is used to.

Developed in parallel with the coupe, the convertible version loses none of the stately elegant, becoming one of the most most sinuous and seductive designs Bentley has undertaken in its 100 year history. Head designer Stefan Sielaff is – like many UK-trained German car designers – a committed Anglophile. Over his four years at Bentley he has studiously assembled an international team capable of distilling ‘Britishness’ – that ephemeral and frankly indefinable quality – into every model in the range. Admittedly, as a VW Group member Bentley has access to technology and development budgets independent manufacturers can only dream of.

Happily, it deploys these resources with serious aplomb, and as a result the Continental GT siblings have easy claim to be the most complete luxury cars in their sector. They’re not as sporting as an Aston Martin, nor as refined as a Rolls-Royce, nor are they as raucous as a Lamborghini or as overtly technical as a McLaren, or even as in your face as a Ferrari. Instead, they’re ‘just’ Bentleys, a refreshingly straightforward expression of wealth in a world where conspicuous consumption has reached a raging clamour (encouraging the rest of the world frequently rages right back). Admittedly, this solidly elegant foundation allows the GTC to be specified in limitless ways, effectively representing all things to all people. Sober, discrete and stylish luxury? Or outrageously loud expression of taste? Bentley’s design team has created the ultimate template, a willingness to accommodate that accounts for the brand’s 10,000 annual sales (making it the self-proclaimed leader in the luxury sector).

Behind the wheel, the convertible shares the many admirable qualities displayed by its hard-topped sibling – effortless power, handling that belies the Bentley’s size and weight, plus an interior that is, in almost every respect, one of the best you’ll find in any car, anywhere. Interiors matter more in a convertible, naturally. If you can whip the top off (which takes just 19 seconds), you get a birds-eye view of a sumptuous trimmed cabin, a nest of hand-stitched leather, a vast choice of wood veneers and knurled metal knobs and dials. The performance almost feels like an afterthought, so superior is the experience of wafting along beneath a (hopefully) clear blue sky, surrounded by craft and attention to detail. But it’s all there, and the GTC has a zest and thrust that defies its size.

This is conspicuous consumption writ large and unembarrassed, a beautiful object that exceeds every reasonable envelope simply because it can. One hundred years after WO Bentley set out to build the very best cars in the world, the company that bears his name is still rising to the challenge.

(first published 4 March 2019)

INFORMATION

Bentley Continental GTC, from £149,350. For more information, visit the website

The SUV’s ascent into the pinnacle of luxury design has been a slow but steady one. The very first Range Rover, all the way back in 1970, was obviously onto something but it took its rivals decades to match this grand old mash-up of the agricultural with the aesthetic. Since the turn of the century, the genre has exploded, starting with the mass-market. Over one in three cars sold is an SUV, a segment where profits are higher and perceived kudos is easily demonstrated: bigger is best.

We present the ur-SUV, two cars at the summit of the genre, the apex predators of this automotive form. The well established Bentley Bentayga – newly available in V8 form – and the upstart high-tech challenger from Volkswagen, the new Touareg, represent the new world order of automotive scale.

Of the many, many models and variants that Volkswagen builds, the Touareg is the biggest and boldest, as well as being the most expensive and – it goes without saying – the most prestigious. It’s also not really designed for European car culture as it current stands, let alone as it will soon evolve. The Touareg is a ‘full size’ SUV, the Venti coffee of car culture. Actually, that’s not true, because in the US you can get the VW Atlas, the Trenta equivalent, with seven seats and a rugged, outdoorsy family-orientated image. In stark contrast, the new Touareg is pitched as an all-out luxury car. VW has dipped into its enviable kit of parts, stitching together the best of every brand to create what is now its flagship.

Volkswagen Touareg

As a result, the Touareg is a technical showcase, with a dashboard-swallowing touch screen that must be one of the largest on the market. It is smooth, near silent and incredibly cosseting to drive, easily on a par with the best luxury saloons from the likes of Mercedes and Audi. With only a V6 diesel available to start with, performance is above average but not exceptional. A bigger engine and a hybrid version will be along in due course.

It’s worth pointing out, though, that the Touareg sits on VW’s MLB2 Platform, a German acronym for ‘Modular Longitudinal Matrix’. This is an engineering template that forms the core of many of the group’s most significant large cars over the past decade. Platforms are developed to massively cut the complexity of car-making, by sharing certain key components and hardpoints. Engines, transmissions, bodywork, interior and all the fripperies and trapping of branding can then be farmed out to the independent companies in the group, saving time and money and allowing for far greater diversity.

The Touareg is the newest car to use the tech, and it joins a diverse list of other stalwarts in the VW Group range, including Audi’s Q7 and Q8, the Lamborghini Urus, Porsche Cayenne and Bentley Bentayga. Price aside, these cars are sufficiently distinct so as not to encroach on each other’s toes; presumably no Bentley buyer will suddenly waver and opt instead for a Volkswagen and vice versa. The platform has baked-in support for hybrid technology, but doesn’t form the basis of the all-electric SUVs that are starting to creep into the market.

Inside the Volkswagen Touareg

The Touareg also offers a very contemporary definition of luxury, smooth and quiet, with well integrated tech, graphics and switches. It’s not about wood and leather, or finicky crafts and decades of heritage. As the visceral sound and feel of a traditional engine starts to fade from our memory and fall off our wish lists, these new high-tech luxury signifiers will be more and more important. How smart is your car? How well does is sync with your other tech? Can it track and keep pace with the traffic? Does it integrate with your smart home?

The Touareg’s sibling, the Bentley Bentayga, has a different take. The Bentayga is newly fitted with a V8 petrol engine (as opposed to the massive W12 that’s fitted to the flagship). Fire it up, and the futuristic concerns that occupy the Touareg owner swiftly fade away. As we noted above, the Bentayga shares an awful lot of the Touareg’s genetics. But where the VW is chiselled and sleek, the big Bentley SUV has a baroque, voluptuous heft. Contemporary car design is all about ensuring the essence of your brand feels like its baked all the way through an object, even if the actual physical changes are confined to a 5-10 cm deep layer of surface treatment.

No-one will mistake these cars for one another, but they will certainly have a reaction to their scale. The Bentayga is bigger in every dimension (that flexible platform, remember), but inside feels smaller on account of the more traditional approach to dashboard and switches. There’s no cinemascope-style screen, just a smaller touchscreen that is already showing its age. Instead, you have Bentley’s traditional ‘organ stop’ style ventilation controls and chrome, wood and leather aplenty, beneath all which are the switches for the clever off-road technology that the Bentayga shares with the VW.

Bentley Bentayga V8

Where the Touareg is apt to get a little wheezy, the Bentley just blows on through. This is perhaps the closest thing modern car culture has to the monstrously powerful and brutish inter-war luxury cars built by the likes of Mercedes, Rolls-Royce, Bugatti and, of course, Bentley itself. At over two and half times the price of the Touareg with options, the Bentayga is aimed at a very different customer. Heritage means so, so much more in this sector. Since becoming a spoke in the mighty wheel of VW, Bentley has underplayed its technology in favour of an emphasis on traditional craft and effortless performance.

On the open road, the latter is peerless. The Bentayga will cruise all day at autobahn speeds in near silence, yet also dive in-and-out of corners with an ease that belies its size (and weight). In town, the former qualities come into play; the car acts as a buffer for the outside world, insulating you against noise, traffic and the occasional rolled eyes or rude hand gesture. This is not a machine that wins friends and influences people. Instead, it is for the supremely self-confident who need no additional help.

There are many who’d say that the old, cramped cities of Europe are no longer suitable stomping grounds for today’s SUVs. These are machines for the wide open roads of the US, or the new territories of China and Russia, trade embargoes and corruption crackdowns notwithstanding. Yet regardless of the application, both of these cars provide a hefty, impregnable carapace against the inevitable brickbats of modern life. Your brand allegiance, however, will surely determine the way the world reacts to you.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Bentley website, and the Volkswagen website

The sun blessed all three days of Villa d’Este Concorso d’Eleganza this year – despite the threat of looming nearby thunderstorms – helping to make the 2018 edition of the elite classic car and bike show held on the shores of Lake Como in Northern Italy one of its best. The recipe for the annual late-May weekend event is simple: Firstly, choose a small selection of the rarest vehicular transportation from the early 20th century to now – just 56 cars and 34 bikes were entered this year, from powerhouse marques that straddle much of, if not all of that period, like Bentley, Ferrari and Porsche, to deceased brands from the past (Isotta Fraschini) and newcomers as well (Genesis).

Secondly, ask each owner to take turns to ride or drive (or in some of the older classic car cases, be pushed!) from their lawn or gravel pitch to loop around the stunning Villa d’Este and promenade in front of a special design jury and the show-going public. Finally, get the jury and public to cast their votes and award various prizes, based on provenance, rarity, authenticity… and of course beauty.

This year’s car winners were unusually all Italian, including a 1958 Ferrari 335 Sport Spider with coachwork by Scaglietti (the Jury’s Best of Show); a 1968 Alfa Romeo 33/2 Stradale with bodywork by Scaglione (the visiting Public’s Best of Show); the 1970 Lancia Stratos Zero concept with bodywork by Gandini (Young People under 16’s top gun); and the 2018 Ferrari SP38 designed by Manzoni (the Public’s Concept Car winner). On the bike side of things, the 1948 Moto Major was applauded by the professionals (Jury’s Best of Show); the Nottingham-born 1939 Brough Superior SS80, with its immaculate pin-striped side car, claimed the public Best of Show vote and a 1907 Indian Twin-Cylinder took the Jury’s special prize.

From big-engined 1920s behemoths to 1950s beach buggies then, to 1960s and 1970s Formula 1 racing cars and Noughties electric concept cars and bikes, there was an exotic automotive flavour for everyone. Read on for Wallpaper’s highlights…

Marc Newson’s 1934 Bugatti 59
Owners of rare classics at Villa d’Este tend to be more wealthy than well-known, but Australian product designer Marc Newson is, like Ralph Lauren at Villa d’Este events in previous years, perhaps an exception (while neither are exactly poor). Either way, Newson’s automotive taste is clearly on point, his 1934 Bugatti 59 Grand Prix car winning its early motor racing-inspired class category.

2018 BMW Concept 9Cento
BMW usually launches a concept car and concept bike at Villa d’Este as the wider BMW Group organises the modern event, but this year there was only the BMW Concept 9Cento motorbike (plus a brief glimpse of the Rolls-Royce Cullinan). Edgar Heinrich, design director of BMW Motorrad told Wallpaper* that the Concept 9Cento’s purpose was to ‘up the desirability factor of a touring bike’ normally known more for their long-distance practicality rather than wow factor. Based on an existing chassis and engine, the design process was a super-quick four months and in a nod to the need for touring bike practicality, the Concept 9Cento also features clip-on-and-off panniers (shown here small, but with bigger options envisioned).

2018 Genesis Essentia concept
First shown at the New York Auto Show earlier this year, Hyundai’s upmarket brand Genesis chose Villa d’Este to take its latest Essentia concept out into the open and bask in the sunshine by the side of Lake Como. The combined talents of Luc Donckerwolke (ex-Bentley and Lamborghini), SangYup Lee (ex-Bentley and GM) and Alexander Selipanov (ex-Bugatti) created this all-electric GT concept and its clean and curvaceous exterior looked right at home among the classics on show.

1929 Rolls-Royce Phantom I
It’s the gold plating accents that adorn all the visible metal parts of this otherwise glossy black 1929 Phantom mk1’s exterior that catch the attention initially, but arguably its most delightful element – and surely the best automotive interior detail at 2018’s Villa d’Este – is the incredibly intricate wooden rear-door cabin panel. Featuring a built-in Rolls-Royce timepiece, artistic wood inlay and vertical slots for what look like two cut-glass perfume bottles, a book plus an ornate vanity mirror, the level of skill and refinement is incredible.

INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este website

May was a busy month in the automobile industry, with marques far and wide launching refreshed models from well-loved lines, as well as especially eye-catching one-off releases. Stylish saloons, stoic SUVs, nimble urban navigators and stealthy supercars captured our attention at Wallpaper* – explore our selection of the best releases of the month, and be sure to read our full features for in-depth reviews.

Ferrari SP38

Another rabbit pulled from the Ferrari hat, the Special Project 38 (joining the marque’s One-Off division) is something genuinely unique – built to order with close collaboration with a dedicated customer. The Ferraristi will recognise the basic proportions of the company’s mid-engined flagship 488 GTB, with a bodywork inspired by the legendary F40 model and hints of earlier models such as the snubby 1970s GT4. Intended for both road and track, the SP38 will most likely find itself an impressive investment, a project bringing a loyal customer to the heart of the brand whilst adding another chapter to Ferrari’s ever expanding design history.

Volvo XC40

Explicitly positioned as a ‘designer object’, Volvo XC40 is relatively compact, undeniably trim and a very pleasant place to sit. A beautifully tailored interface is fast and intuitive, akin to those found in its larger siblings the XC60 and XC90. The bodywork is a little more expressive, featuring a chunky, blade-like D-pillar that kicks up from the backdoor and dovetails into Volvo’s signature arrow-like rear lights. Volvo imbues its decades-long heritage into the XC40, values of safety, solidarity and stoic simplicity, all of which it lives up to.

Bentley Continental GT

Bentley Continental GT has sold over 65,000 units since 2003. For the latest model, engineers were still tweaking the gearbox right up until the last minute, illustrating the amount of time invested into making the new model just right. Exterior proportions bring to mind the best in Italian and French car design from the 60s and 70s, whereas inside, technology and tradition meet at tactile switches and dials, metals and woods. Whilst throttle response and steering isn’t razor sharp, the available power and unflusterable balance make it delightful to push, with a top speed of 207 mph and reaching 0 – to 60 in around 3.6 seconds.

Volkswagen Up GTI

VW continues to excel at building small cars in an age where SUVs, saloons and supercars are all the rage. Small, light and peppy, VW Up is a piece of near-perfect packaging, with 115 PS eked out of a 1 litre 3-cylinder engine, a six speed gearbox, powerful hi-fi and heated seats. On the flip side, the Up does away with the touchscreen, reasoning that you’d rather use your smartphone in place of an integrated system (however, VW need to update their phone cradle so it takes the current generation of smartphones). Amazingly economical, the Up delivers a purist experience, and is the embodiment of old school fun.

Audi RS4 Avant

The new Audi RS4 demonstrates that the attraction of stealth performance is still undiminished. Joining the RS branch of the Audi family tree (reserved for ‘racing sport’ models), the latest RS4 features a twin turbo-charged V6 engine, making it a relentlessly quick and efficient machine, with extremely fast handling and power delivery best deployed for lightning-fast overtaking manouevers. Sufficient refinement makes everyday use a pleasure and not a grinding chore – some owners will seek out every opportunity to put the car through its paces on the track, whereas for others, it’s the knowledge that absolute power is available in such a convincing and capable package.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit our Cars tagpage

Bentley is a curious company, a paragon of tradition and high society staple that is also a crude signifier of wealth as well as the model of discretion. These contradictory values all come together in the new Continental GT, probably the best car to ever bear the famous winged ‘B’. Bentley’s challenge is to balance 99 years of heritage with a demanding customer base engaged in a perpetual game of automotive one-upmanship, all the while working with a parent company committed to innovation but allergic to experimentation. Throw in a rising tide of legislative requirements and shifting social attitudes, and you have rich stew of conflict and contradiction.

The first Continental GT was introduced back in 2003 and given a substantial overhaul in 2011. It was big, bold and a little bit brutish, drawing (loose) inspiration from the legendary 1950s R-Type. It was also a mass-market Bentley, the first model to conform to the cycles, economics and politics of global car manufacturing, not just the whims and eccentricities of a small cottage industry.

Over 65,000 GTs have been sold since 2003, making it the most successful model in the company’s history by a substantial amount. Development was vastly boosted by the company’s acquisition by the VW Group back in 1998, and while the Germanic influence, whether at board level, in the design studio or under the bonnet, is keenly felt by enthusiasts, no-one could deny that Volkswagen’s branding acumen had turned this beloved but archaic brand into a formidable high-end player. In recent years, the company has launched the Bentayga, a high-end SUV that has given annual sales a crucial boost.

The new GT has a high bar to leap. The long, long model cycle of its predecessor allowed competitors to raise their game substantially, meaning that the new model had to hit ambitious performance and refinement targets. Engineers were still tweaking the gearbox right up until the last minute (delaying the original launch), illustrating just how much Bentley needs this car to be right.

Grand touring is an aspirational activity, more than an everyday reality. It harks back to a pre-traffic era, when speed cameras would be considered unsporting and motorists in ‘lesser’ cars would simply pull over, and not try and capture your driving transgressions for broadcast on social media. However, one of Bentley’s greatest tricks is to convey the sense of a grand tour every time you get in the car. Driving doesn’t have much sense of occasion these days, but the GT does its damndest to lift your spirits.

First things first. This is a very beautiful car, with the proportional finesse the original always lacked. There’s a fluid coherence to the overall shape that brings to mind the best Italian and French car design of the 60s and 70s. The Bentley bulges with a little bit too much chrome, perhaps, but the oval rear lights, flared haunches, steeply sloping rear screen and short overhangs do a good job of concealing the car’s size.

Inside, it’s even better. Bentley’s design team, led by Stefan Sielaff, have spliced technology with tradition and come up trumps. Bentley favours tactile switches and dials, metals and woods, with a simple vertical fascia panel running the (considerable) width of the car. Trim options are limitless, allowing customers to indulge in retro-tinged nostalgia or something rather more contemporary. At the centre is the Bentley Rotating Display, a triangular chunk of dashboard that pivots and spins, offering up either three analogue dials, the standard display screen or the veneer of your choice. It’s rather over-engineered, but as a result it fits right in with this car.

Finally, the driving experience. Lighter and more powerful than its predecessor, the GT’s ability belies its size. While a fast autostrada cruise is what it was born to do, we revelled in flinging the big Bentley around the tight corners of the Italian and Austrian alps. Throttle response isn’t quite razor sharp, and the steering doesn’t communicate like a true sports car, but the available power and unflusterable balance make it delightful to push. Bentley claims a top speed of 207 mph for the GT, and a 0 to 60 of around 3.6 seconds.

Yet for all its sophistication – and the GT is incredibly, impossibly sophisticated – there’s an underlying sense that this is the end of a gilded age, the last burst of shining light before the implosion of the traditional way of doing things. Craft, materials, artisanship, design, technology, all these things can and will live on in the luxury vehicles of the future, but the sheer effort and ingenuity that goes into shaping an internal combustion engine like this one is, sadly for some, on the way out.

The new GT is the apex of this technology, and although it’s not in imminent danger of extinction, the writing is on the wall: it’s a powerful dinosaur constantly on the lookout for a meteorite. No matter how you spin it, 12 cylinders displacing 6 litres and developing 626 horsepower is an anachronism; more and more companies are promising to eschew the internal combustion engine altogether in the not too distant future. Presumably Bentley is having similar thoughts – it would highly improbable if it didn’t follow suit. In the short term, the W12 GT will find happy homes with those who want to be first to sample the new car. But we suspect that a hybrid V8 version of the GT would be an even more focused machine, with the bonus of being able to limbo beneath existing emissions regulations; expect one in the next 18 months.

Bentley ownership is about belonging to a particular club, joining a tradition that goes back all the way back to 1919 and encompasses society shenanigans, racing supremacy, technological excellence, design elegance and a dose of luxury that is appreciated by old and new money alike. There are still plenty of potential members lining up to join. But with its centenary on the horizon, Bentley is thinking hard about the next generation of owners, people for whom the combination of clubbability, elegance and clout need not go hand in hand with the throaty rasp of the internal combustion engine. The new Continental GT is a fine, fine automobile, an impeccably tasteful choice and a truly enjoyable machine to drive. Could it be the last of the breed?

(first published 2 May 2018)

INFORMATION
Bentley Continental GT, from £159,100. For more information, visit the Bentley website

The Geneva Motor Show (8 – 18 March 2018) is quite simply the best place in the world to see the widest range of concept cars. From the big players to the small, this year’s event included all manner of electrified and sportscars, saloons and coupes – plus two flying cars – one of which is slated to be less than 12 months away from final customer delivery.

Read on for our seven favourite showstoppers...

Pininfarina HK GT

Renowned Italian design house Pininfarina (behind countless historic Ferraris) uses Geneva to showcase its talent to the world. Although now owned by Indian vehicle maker Mahindra, it’s still based in Turin and works for many marques including the Hybrid Kinetic Group. Indeed, the elegant near-five-metre 2+2 GT is the fourth concept Pininfarina has conceived for the Hong Kong-based emerging tech brand and features an electric powertrain with range-extender capability via an aero industry-inspired micro-turbine, fuel cell or conventional combustion engine to give 620 miles of range. Created by new design VP Carlo Bonzanigo, the GT boasts a well-resolved exterior paired with a modern and tasteful interior. HK says it is on course to launch a production model for the Chinese market by 2020 with some of this concept’s upmarket character and pitched as a luxury Asian marque to rival Tesla and Bentley. High-end stuff.

Icona Nucleus

The Icona is a name you’ve probably not have heard of because it’s not a car brand but a design business – based in Turin, Shanghai and now California – that creates cars for other brands to produce. Already officially eight years old and boasting ex-Bertone senior personnel among its ranks – including Icona VP and global design director Samuel Chuffart – the group chose Geneva to reveal its 600hp in-wheel-electric Nucleus concept. Pitched as a ‘Level 5-autonomous’ vehicle – one that can drive itself in all situations – the Nucleus was born, Chuffart tells Wallpaper* from the ‘idea of a car that you will still love and want to own, despite autonomy’ in a retort to the notion that all future cars will merely be hired as necessary. 

It’s big: 5.25m long, 2.12m wide, 1.75m high and riding on 27” wheels with a 3.3m wheelbase, those dimensions allow for a huge interior space for up to six people. ‘As this will be a car for all occasions, you won’t need to own so many cars,’ Chuffart reasons, ‘so you might invest more on this one, perhaps it will cost €60,000 or so. As it’s autonomous, it could drop you off at the airport, pick up the kids from school and take the grandparents to the doctor as well’.

The other striking element of the design is the lack of conventional glass windows – there’s no driver so no need for a front windscreen, and occupants can look out the sides through semi-transparent body colour panels that allow for privacy from the outside. Considerable time was spent on a well-resolved human machine interface too, which works like a more intuitive Uber app, requesting user interests as well as destination info to curate a more tailored journey, that might for instance, suggest restaurants and other points of interest along the way based on your daily preferences. Despite its two-tonne weight, grand-tourer flexibility is promised via a hydrogen-powered range-extender good for circa 750 miles of travel… in about 2030.

GFG Sibylla

On the small GFG Style stand at Geneva sat two concept cars – the 1963 Chevrolet Testudo concept and the 2018 GFG Sibylla – 55 years apart but designed by the same man: 79-year old Giorgetto Giugiaro. Arguably the most important car designer of the 20th century, behind the VW Golf mk1 and Lotus Esprit among dozens of others, Giugiaro launched a new car design firm called GFG Style in 2015 – named after him and his son Fabrizio, who runs the day-to day business – after selling the final part of his Italdesign business to VW.

This year’s Geneva show was the first time GFG had its own exhibition stand though, where it revealed a four-seat 400Kw electric concept for Envision – China’s second largest wind turbine company and a manager of 100GW of worldwide energy assets. There’s no production intent for this car though. It exists to promote Envision’s EnOS electricity system concept where EVs integrate into a wider energy eco system by contributing power to domestic houses and back to the grid. But GFG has two SUVs launching in 2019 in the Chinese market for a Chinese brand, and plans to open an engineering company with an EV-specialist partner in Shanghai by the end of 2018 (as well as continue its thriving industrial design and architecture businesses).

Italdesign Airbus Pop.Up Next (concept flying car)

VW Group’s Italdesign and Airbus added seriousness to the flying car race at the 2017 Geneva Motor Show with their Pop.Up all-electric part-car, part-drone modular concept. At 2018’s Geneva show the Pop.Up Next – now with added Audi – aims to make clear that the big-hitting companies are still taking the idea of a connected, hail-and-ride, eco-friendly, congestion-busting fly/drive future vehicle seriously. The two-seater has been made more aerodynamic, lighter and a bit more stylish – enough to warrant Audi adding its four rings to the nose – and Italdesign and Airbus’s engineers have improved the coupling and de-coupling systems between the car and flying modules. Although smarter in every sense then, the electric city commuter concept still only offers a 30-mile range and could be 5-10 years away from being production- and cost-viable.

PAL-V Liberty (production flying car)

Unlike the Italdesign Airbus Pop.Up Next, the PAL-V flying car is production-ready – albeit powered by a conventional airplane engine and fuel – with first deliveries due in 2019. The Dutch business Dingemanse behind the vehicle says it has taken 100 orders at between €400-600,000 each, depending on specification (and with 25 flying lessons thrown in) and says the vehicle shown at Geneva only needs certification before customers can literally take-off.

300 miles of flying range is promised and much more on land alone. CEO of PAL-V was more than bullish at what he sees as the first-ever production flying car: ‘This is the moment of truth. All certifications for commercialisation will be granted on the basis of this production model. It is the pivotal point that separates pioneers from dreamers.’

Hyundai Le Fil Rouge concept

The South Korean powerhouse group – also boasting Kia and now Genesis within its ranks – has made a great job of transforming into a globally-accepted mainstream volume maker of reliable and smart cars. Now it’s looking to move a little more upmarket and has hired two high-profile ex-Bentley designers – Luc Donckerwolke and SangYup Lee – to help do just that. The Le Fil Rouge concept is their first statement of intent. The four-seat, four-door coupe’s exterior might be classically conventional at first glance, but its simple lines hide new ideas. These include LED pipes underneath its feature lines to create a distinct side profile light signature and a pared-back interior where space normally reserved for bulky dashboards is stripped bare to create curvaceous laminated wood pathways for air flow. A big leap on from today’s Hyundai range, Lee sums ups the change well: ‘Our cars today are practical and good value but in the future that won’t cut it, we have to create emotional value too.’

Touring Superleggera Scià di Persia

It takes old-school Italian design house Touring Superleggera up to 5000 man-hours to transform the Maserati Gran Turismo donor car into the shapely Scià di Persia (‘Shah of Persia’) limited edition that graced its Geneva show stand. The first of only ten units maximum, head of design Louis de Fabribeckers explains that the design house’s focused business model is based on very special customers (with very deep pockets to match, Touring wouldn’t reveal guide prices) who want something bespoke and luxury. ‘With this approach the customer creates a piece of automotive history, regular carmakers can’t match. We do one-offs too.’

INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Geneva Motor Show website

Bentley kicks off this year’s Geneva Motor Show with the launch of the very first high luxury hybrid. By kitting out the Bentayga SUV with an advanced electric motor – and adding a charging dock designed by one-time Wallpaper* Guest Editor Phillippe Starck – the British manufacturer has stolen a march over the competition.

The ultra-low emission vehicle pairs a petrol V6 with battery power, giving a 50km electric only range as well as assisting the marque’s trademark bottomless reserves of power.

Tipped to be launched in the second half of 2018, the new variant was showcased alongside another luxury accessory, the Philippe Starck-designed Power Dock. Combining pressed eco-linen, resin and aluminium, the Bentley by Starck Power Dock is a bold piece of domestic sculpture designed for use in conjunction with a new smartphone app. If you’re lucky enough to have an industrial power supply at home, charge time is reduced to just 2.5 hours.

For now the Bentayga stands alone in the luxury SUV field, with an options list and bespoke options that run rings (and cost considerably more) than its rivals. As Bentley’s first hybrid, it marks the start of a new focus for the company, which hopes to bring increased electrification to all its models in the years to come.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Bentley website

Unveiled in Cannes at this year’s boat show, Princess’ new 62 model is here to prove that when it comes to luxury yachts, size isn’t always everything. At a more modest 19.34m long, the 62 bobs comfortably at the company’s mid-size category of their famous Flybridge range, a design that casts a benevolent appearance in comparison to the somewhat aggressive, generously proportioned silhouettes on offer elsewhere.

The focus here is on a quiet luxury rather than opulence: you won’t find Swarovski bling or fur trims aboard a Princess (unless demanded by the buyer, perhaps). According to its head of design, Sarah Verey, the challenge with yacht interiors these days is meeting an ever-increasing demand for a minutely personalised experience amongst a sea of rapidly shifting trends. Nowadays, many Princess customers use their yacht to work on while spending time with family as a sort of itinerant holiday home.

In order to create that homely floating environment, there’s a muted palette of hand-stitched Fendi materials (Princess is owned by LVMH) and a comfortable layout of seating throughout (a dining area, a sunpad aft and a circular forward seating area that can be converted into an additional sunpad). Large glazed windows help enhance an ‘inside/outside’ experience by cutting out much of the external noise, which would certainly be considerate at full throttle should the buyer opt for the Caterpillar 12.9 1000 engine, with a top speed of around 30 knots.

The Princess 62 saloon

Also revealed on the quay alongside the 62, to much anticipation, was Bentley’s limited-edition Continental GT Convertible Galene Edition, designed by Mulliner and directly inspired by the Plymouth-based Princess Yachts. Both brands place a passionate onus on British craftsmanship and a devilish attention to detail with material, stitching and user experience.

What first grabs the eye is the bright, yacht-like white exterior featuring a ‘sequined blue’ stripe. Rather than going for the obvious ropes and Breton seats, literal nautical references can be found in the pinstriped walnut veneer – reminiscent of decking – on the central console and lining the boot. As an extremely bespoke touch, Spanish artist Jaume Vilardell’s watercolour illustration, featuring a Flybridge, is featured on the interior fascia panels.

A Bentley yacht may not be on the cards any time soon, but the partnership has proved a success thus far: there were originally going to be 20 of the GT convertibles made but demand has been so high that there will now be 30. If the new luxury seafaring trend is to accessorise one’s yacht with its matching car, keeping a vehicle in every port is going to get expensive.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Princess Yachts website and Bentley Motors website

The Bentley Continental GT is a modern classic. This is the car that turned Bentley from a niche builder of brutish, old school gentleman’s conveyances into a honed, modern luxury goods manufacturer, able to build anything from a GT car to a royal limousine. This transformation was brokered by Bentley’s then-new owners, the Volkswagen Group, and the GT embodied the shift from traditional methods to modern, platform-engineered production. Like all the best brand rebirths, the original design team behind the Continental GT adeptly fused the marque’s best qualities with modern materials and technologies. The original GT arrived in 2003 and was substantially overhauled in 2011. Never, however, has the car been given a complete ground-up makeover.

Despite the masterful synthesis of old ideals and thoroughly new underpinnings, VW’s might and muscle was never far away, however, Detractors pointed out the various shared components – everything from engines to in-car entertainment – and lamented that character of Volkswagen’s various marques was little more than a skilful exercise in branding. Bentley has taken that criticism to heart with the all-new Continental GT. Yes, there are shared bits, most notably with the current generation Porsche Panamera saloon. Bentley is keen to point out that 82 per cent of this car is unique to Bentley, and you’d have to be especially churlish to complain about that invisible 18 per cent. What’s more telling is the scale; the Panamera is a massive four-door, four-seater. The GT is a classic 2+2 coupe. Bentley is still working on a different scale to everyone else.

First impressions are overwhelmingly positive. The original car was never svelte, but used scale to create presence, with Bentley citing the lorry-like ‘Blower’ supercharged Bentley racecars of the interwar period as a precedent. Like a chunky mechanical watch or thickly starched cuff, Bentleys often convey a very traditional ideal of masculinity. The new car is no smaller than its predecessor, but the edges have softened and there’s a more fluid, feminine quality of line, particularly around the rear. Here, oval lights sit within a neatly creased rear treatment beneath a flowing fastback-style rear deck. The rear wheel arches are more pronounced than before, with shorter overhangs at front and rear giving the car a more dynamic stance.

One place where Bentleys have traditionally excelled is in their interior, with space and time to indulge in craftsmanship and quality that mass-market cars simply can’t approach. In the past, this combination lent itself to rather archaic arrangements of switches and dials - ambience rather than ergonomics. The new car ratchets up the technology, with a unique rotating central dash element that switches seamlessly between conventional dials and a flat screen information display. The quality of materials and finishes are peerless, inviting you to jump in and ratchet up the miles to some suitably sybaritic location.

We’ll drive the Continental GT in due course, and explore some of the marque’s legendary performance. Suffice to say it won’t be lacking, with the launch cars containing a heavily version of the flagship W12 engine and lightweight materials and components being used wherever possible. Ultimately, the GT range will consist of a convertible, a V8 and – most importantly of all – a hybrid version. All have the potential to dent the big Bentley’s brutish image, increase the brand’s unisex appeal and – in the case of the hybrid – make another important step towards the electrification of luxury.

(first published 3 October 2017)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Bentley Motors website

The new Continental Supersports model is the last hurrah for the car that has done more than any other to transform the modern image of Bentley. Ironically, when the Continental is finally replaced with a completely new model after an impressive 14 years (the current car is second generation in name but actually shares a substantial amount of engineering with the original 2003 machine), it will no longer sit at the top of Bentley’s sales charts. That honour will instead have passed to the Bentayga, the brash but capable SUV that currently cueing up a massive change in company fortunes.

Bentley was a company founded by gentlemen for gentlemen, a purveyor of personal transportation for the slightly wilder and more wayward spectrum of the British upper classes and industrial elites of the pre- and inter-war era. Bentley had its ‘Boys’, an undisciplined but fearless bunch of gentlemen racers who used their privilege and undeniable skill to pilot WO Bentley’s brutish machines into the sporting history books. Despite changes of ownership and focus, that sporting image has never really deserted the company, and outrageous performance has always been a hallmark of Bentleys old and new.

The Supersports name has its origins in 1925, the heyday of WO’s era, when 18 examples of the iconic 3 litre model were supplied in an enhanced ‘Super Sports’ guise, with shortened, lightened chassis (although no Bentley has ever been svelte) and uprated engine. These changes made the car good for a genuine 100mph, at a time when this fabled figure was all but unattainable, especially on the road. Back in 2009, the Supersports name was revived and applied to a strung out, stripped-back, bucket-seated, road-racing version of the Continental, a car which was duly crowned the fastest Bentley ever.

As the 2009 Supersports showed, we’re living in a 200mph era now, a top end that is as impractical now as 100mph was back in 1925. But raw figures matter in this part of the market. There’s an undeniable whiff of bragging rights behind the engineering, impressive as it might be. More than anything else, the new 2017 Supersports is about besting those figures. Yet again, this will be the fastest road-going Bentley ever made, an all-important title that presumably gets harder and harder to attain. With a top speed of 209 mph and a 0-60 time of 3.4 seconds (and a 0-100mph of 7.2s) there's no denying this car is hysterically fast. Just 710 examples will be made, split as per customer requirement between coupe and convertible variants, with the usual Bentley accoutrements ladled on according to taste, all the way up to the anything-goes fantasy land of Mulliner-specification.

In ‘basic’ configuration, the Supersports is a more than ample demonstration of Bentley’s skills with a sewing needle and materials swatch. The main story here is undoubtedly the performance. The Continental has evolved over its lifespan into a formidable grand tourer, and presumably no owner ever grumbled that their car wasn’t sufficiently swift or was brave enough to attempt high-speed cornering.

No one asked, but Bentley have still delivered. The 2017 Supersports is a have-your-cake-and-eat-it car, the kind that promises all things to all people. As the fastest officially certified four-seater in the world (although we would be surprised if that 209mph top speed was attainable with four full-size adults on board), it also makes a capable fist of preserving Bentley’s many decades of grand touring heritage. The 2009 Supersports was regarded as rather brash by Bentley standards, with race-inspired bucket seats and paintwork. This new model is far more refined, but it can still be flung around a racetrack with a deftness that belies its 2.2 ton weight.

Not all supercars are bought for the performance numbers, but there’ll always be certain models that are deliberately targeted at those for whom records matter. The Supersports fits nicely into this niche, giving the ageing Continental plenty of cachet ahead of the all-new model’s launch at the end of this year. For the purist, it’s more of a Bentley than the Bentayga will ever be, regardless of those soaring sales.

(first published 27 June 2017)

INFORMATION

Bentley Continental Supersports, from £212,500 (Coupe), £233,800 (Convertible). For more information, visit the Bentley Motors website

From the soaring towers of Dubai, Bentley has captured the world’s most detailed landscape image using a panoramic ‘Gigapixel’ camera. Suspended 264 metres off one of Dubai’s tallest buildings, the camera withstood the Emirate’s hazy 40-degree heat and 15 mph winds to capture 1,825 individual frames. Painstakingly stitched together with careful attention paid to light balance, the result is a 57.7 billion-pixel panorama, which is so wide, it even shows the curvature of the earth.

From among Dubai’s swirling network of highways, turquoise waters and glittering glass towers, eagle-eyed viewers will just about be able to pick out a Bentley Flying Spur W12 S parked within Dubai’s luxury marina. However, zoom in, and there is no mistaking. Using NASA-derived technology, the ‘Gigapixel’ camera’s powerful lens allows viewers to get so close that they can inspect its famous winged bonnet badge in sharp focus.

A testament to Bentley’s attention to detail, the intricate process took no less than 48 hours to create. The amount of time that Bentley has invested in perfecting this single image is impressive, but coming from the British marque that thinks nothing of dedicating 130 man-hours to the build of a single Flying Spur, perhaps it’s not so surprising.

Just like the photograph it features in, the Flying Spur W12 S is full of extraordinary detail and hidden delights. Designed with both the driver and passenger in mind, Bentley describe the W12 S derivative as ‘a luxury sedan for those who wish to be chauffeured, as well as those who choose to drive’. Beneath its bonnet lies a mighty 6.0-litre, twin-turbo W12 engine with enhanced power (635 PS) and torque (820 Nm) outputs. To match the impressive power upgrades, Bentley saw fit to install a new responsive suspension tune to improve handling and provide even more traction.

In terms of appearance, all of the hallmarks of traditional Bentley styling are here but are accompanied by some subtle sporting updates; sharp feature lines complement muscular rear haunches, while LED daytime running lights, subtle blackware elements and a choice of stylish alloy wheels lend it a contemporary, athletic character.

In a new 360-degree film featuring John Paul Gregory, Bentley’s Head of Exterior Design, the Flying Spur W12 S reveals itself to possess an altogether darker and more assertive character than its stablemates.  In the film viewers can further explore the Flying Spur W12 S’s sleek detailing, from the new gloss-black rear bumper to the new black ‘S’ on the W12 S badge. For Bentley the devil has always been in the detail.

Very few luxury cars are born of expediency, rather than demand, and the Bentley Bentayga Diesel might be one of the first. This, the company’s first ever foray into the diesel market, is a big SUV being launched at a rather inopportune time for this particular type of fossil fuel. The diesel path, we’ve belatedly discovered, wasn’t the buttery smooth road to a low emission, high efficiency, power-filled future, but a smokey back road leading to a rather large technological cul-de-sac. Given that the motor industry’s biggest scandal in decades is dubbed ‘dieselgate’, the logic behind the launch of what is one of the world’s most powerful – and almost certainly the most expensive – diesel-engined car ever made is questionable.

From behind the wheel of this imperious machine, these concerns melt away, just as any vibration, noise and harshness from the V8 powertrain are smoothed into oblivion by some very adept engineering. It turns out that it’s all about power and technology, and copious lashings of both. The original Bentayga bounded into view at the start of the year, brutish and big, controversially styled but undeniably a Bentley at heart. Unsurprisingly, a high-riding off-roader was a great place for the company’s acclaimed interiors team to go to town with a palette-full of big-ticket materials. Fully tricked out, the Bentayga is as close to a land-going yacht as you’re likely to find, with a blend of teak, chrome, leather and meticulous attention to detail.

All of this stays present and correct in the diesel model; indeed, the only difference you’ll notice is a black radiator grille and a tailpipe design. Outside the car, there’s a very slight diesel chatter, but inside the ambience is hushed. The big benefit with a diesel engine, fuel economy aside, is that more power is available at lower engine speeds – you don’t have to be revving the motor like a demon to get the most output. This inherent grunt suits big vehicles like trucks, buses and lorries, and when downsized into conventional cars it has the added bonus of improving performance far above and beyond. The flipside is emissions. Although the best modern diesels pump out significantly less C02, they don’t skimp on the bigger, sootier particles that make up so much lung-busting urban smog. That’s why the diesel Bentley has an industrial-strength filter system to scrub off any unwanted smut.

What Bentley has done with signature skill is make this Bentayga the equal of its W12 engined sibling. To get the requisite power, what is effectively a triple-charging system taps the engine and exhaust at every conceivable point to channel maximum power regardless of revs. Coupled with the filter system and boosted electrics, it means engine plumbing so complex the under bonnet space resembles a small power station.

This complexity is all but invisible to the driver and entirely undetectable by the passengers, who get a leather-swathed space in which to recline while the car is doing its competent thing. We barrelled along empty Spanish roads and up slippery hillsides, cutting thick grooves through red mud thanks to a recent record-breaking rainfall. In all situations, we were far more concerned about dirtying the cream carpets than getting even slightly stuck. Such practicalities might never be sampled by the Bentayga's target market, but as with all things related to automotive performance and ability, it's not about what you do, but what you could do. Nevertheless, the Bentayga Diesel would be a fine choice for hauling a couple of polo ponies across a wet field or sneaking up the side of a glen for a champagne picnic. The adept stewards at the helm of the brand have made the Bentayga a hit, with nearly 5,500 cars delivered. The enhanced range and peerless refinement of the Bentayga Diesel should boost that figure even more.

INFORMATION

Bentley Bentayga Diesel, from £135,800. For more information, visit the Bentley Motors website

George Bamford made his name – and his company – by applying a touch of polychromatic wizardry to recognisable horological classics. The Bamford Watch Department gives collectible brands limited-edition makeovers, working alongside artists and designers to create playful collector’s pieces that signal discretion or delight. Now Bamford has turned his attention to cars.

Inspired by his family’s long association with Bentley, this one-off Bamford X Bentley goes all-out to incorporate the designer’s signature dark-tint-and-strong-highlight approach. Bentley is no stranger to special requests, of course, and the company’s Mulliner division has a long history of accommodating every conceivable client whim and fancy.

Taking the flagship Mulsanne Speed as a starting point, the Bamford X Bentley presents the 190mph luxury saloon as a moody landscape of rich materials, splashes of bold colour and ‘hidden delights’. The latter includes a customised Bamford watch case, naturally, nestling in the spot many owners pick for their cocktail shaker, while both the bodywork and the interior feature, the company claims, ‘more dark and black-tinted elements than any Bentley before.’

The Kingfisher Blue piping stands out like stripes of neon alongside the piano black veneer, carbon fibre and dark Beluga hide, a colour also carried over to the bodywork, with a special coating process used to give the same rich matte finish to what would otherwise be shiny brightwork. Naturally the console clock is also given pride of place, with a zinging custom face making it pop out of the discreetly dark dashboard. 

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Bentley website

There's an apocryphal story that usually crops up in any piece about Bentley's sporting aspersions. Allegedly, the Italian engineer Ettore Bugatti is said to have referred to the original racing Bentleys as 'the fastest lorries in the world'. Bugatti – who knew a thing or two about making big, fast cars – was making a jab at the sheer scale of Bentley’s famous ‘Blower’ race-cars, titanic machines that dominated motor racing in the late 1920s and early 30s.

Bentleys are still big. The company’s shifting ownership ensures that only a spiritual connection to this era remains, but it’s a link Bentley Motors isn’t willing to forego. Bentley still stands for sporting muscularity, crunching together massive powerplants and chrome, wood, leather and carbon fibre to make the automotive equivalent of an oversized wristwatch. You have to have the solid self-belief to make it work as an extension of your personality.

The Continental GT is the mainstay of the modern Bentley range. An all-new car is promised for 2018, but the current machine is the result of over a decade's honing and refinement, resulting in a hugely capable grand tourer that continues to epitomise the brand's approach. Originally built with VW’s impressive ‘W12’ engine, it’s been available with the lighter and more sonorous V8 since 2013. In many respects, the smaller engine makes this a better car – certainly a livelier one. Now there’s also a V8 S, which channels even more power with even more sporting accoutrements – carbon fibre trim, carbon ceramic brakes and a noisier exhaust. Throw in a few choice bits of custom trim courtesy of Bentley’s Mulliner division, and the price swiftly ratchets up into supercar territory.

Yet even in this aggressive iteration, the V8 S is still much more of a GT. There is power in abundance – a surfeit, if we’re honest – which enables this massive motorcar to accelerate to 60 in around 4.3 seconds. This kind of display is a guilty pleasure, as it is in most cars, and it’s also rather undignified. The Bentley is at its best when the power is kept simmering just beneath the surface, and the hushed qualities of the ride become apparent. The occasional snarling outburst is (hopefully) easy to forgive.

Although it feels slightly perverse to do so, the GT V8S really is a car you can use every day. The benefits of Bentley’s VW parentage shine through in the everyday functionalism of the interior, despite being effectively buried beneath layers of knurled, stitched and chromed materials, creating an almost overpowering aura of automotive traditionalism. It’s testament to the fundamental rightness of the original design that the GT has been able to evolve so effectively and retain such high levels of desirability.

INFORMATION

Bentley Continental GT V8 S, from £149,800, as tested £194,715. For more information, visit the Bentley Motors website

Photography courtesy Bentley Motors

Bentley is offering the ultimate accessory for the high-flying nature-loving vacationer: a $100,000 (£76,035) fly-fishing kit.

The luxury carmaker’s in-house customisation crew Mulliner designed the kit, which is available on the Bentayga, Bentley's first sport-utility vehicle.

The kit includes rod holders, a portable fly-making shop, and cabinetry to hold tea and your gear.

It’s crafted with a waterproof wooden frame swaddled in saddle leather, and hand stitched with linen. There’s also a layer of neoprene to keep out liquid and smells—because no one wants a musky Bentley.

It took Mulliner's craftsmen three months to perfect the kit, according to Outside Online. They hired angler Matt Harris to consult, and studied how all of the equipment worked before designing the perfect housing for it.

This piece originally appeared on Travel + Leisure 

INFORMATION

Photography: courtesy of Bentley 

‘I tried to keep the dignity of the car, but also make it decorative,’ says Sir Peter Blake of his latest venture, a boldly painted Bentley 'art car' that has been created for the Care2Save Charitable Trust. When first asked to envisage how he might decorate the vehicle, the venerable pioneer of British pop art admits he almost declined. ‘I thought, why mess up a perfect object? I wanted to keep its purity and work in a certain radius.... Taste, I suppose.’

Blake's vision is based on the new 200mph+ Continental GT V8 S Convertible. For four months, the artist worked with Bentley's engineers and skilled team of Mulliner artisans at the marque’s Crewe factory. ‘Initially I wasn’t quite sure how the finish would be resolved. We had a band of images wrapped around the car, but the process was far more complicated than I had imagined. We simplified and simplified and simplified it.’

The car made its debut at London auction house Bonhams, where Blake's distinctive bright collage dominates the exterior. A bespoke St Luke’s blue – created in homage to the carmaker’s Cheshire hospice – dominates the rear haunches, doors and boot lid, whilst the St James' red heart motif is hand-painted on the yellow bonnet. Blake completes his Bentley with contrasting fuchsia pink radiator grille surround, with the lower body finished in British racing green.

The interior is equally playful, with each leather seat trimmed in different colour hides, a combination of Cumbrian green, imperial blue, Newmarket tan and hotspur. The same shades are echoed on the steering wheel replete with a pink leather gear lever contrasting boldly against the sobriety of the black dashboard.

A collection of unique storage cases feature a piano black veneer outer treatment with added yellow and red internal linings to reflect the bonnet colour theme. The ‘No. 1 of 1’ labelled treadplate signifies that this is a one-off Sir Peter Blake design.

Finally, the Bentley by Blake comes with its very own personalised playlist, all of which is driving themed – 'Pink Cadillac', 'Route 66', 'Drive-in Saturday', 'Mustang Sally', 'Road to Nowhere' – and, not surprisingly, includes a number of tracks by The Beatles, for whom Blake famously designed the artwork for Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The artist – who incidentally doesn’t hold a driving licence – remarks that this project would have completed his ‘trio of land, sea and air vehicles’ had he successfully completed the commission to paint the final British Airways tailplane, a scheme sadly scrapped by BA before he and David Hockney got their chance.

Blake admits he thoroughly enjoyed this project. ‘I was shown how to hand stitch in the Crewe factory, which was exciting. We really had a very good time there. I have enormous admiration for the people at Bentley who brought my design into being, to produce this one-off lovely car, and I’m very excited to be seeing it.’

The car will be auctioned off at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on 24 June to benefit the charity, which provides palliative and hospice care around the world. As a singular artwork, the Bentley by Sir Peter Blake is hard to beat.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Bentley Motors website

The Bentley of a decade or so from now will not look radically different. Yet, be prepared for a marque that is imagining a highly progressive future, one that will adopt advanced production methods, offer sustainable materials, embrace autonomous driving and even offer a virtual butler.



‘For the future I see some kind of avatar who can organise your time; somebody you can talk to for a more personalised experience,’ says Stefan Sielaff, Bentley’s director of design. ‘We have to be able to connect with digital natives – our future customers.’



Sielaff presents us with an imagined autonomous Mulsanne cabin. It offers a classic luxury living room environment, yet is also a highly technical space replete with a holographic character on the wraparound infotainment screen. The flexible, 0.5mm-thick paper-thin material is in development stage, but Bentley is convinced it represents the future.



Sielaff says millennials will have different expectations from their cars and stresses that ‘Bentley has to react’. This means offering a new level of digitisation, but also shifting its internal attitude away from only working with materials and technology conventionally associated with luxury.



Without dismissing the craft heritage and classic luxury materials, the artisanal skills and expertise embodied by Bentley’s Mulliner division will now extend to advanced materials. Accordingly, Bentley is responding to lifestyles from all over the world. ‘They are influencing our behaviour and new thinking is definitely coming into the luxury car sector.’



Stone veneer, slate and quartz cut to 0.7mm are already being offered as alternatives to wood and metal. In textiles, the marque is researching into cashmere for cars, developing substitute protein leather, and creating intricate patterns from recycled carbon fibre.



Bentley is also is working with 3D printing to create more complex patterns in the radiator grille, and the cut whisky glass has informed the kaleidoscope-style animation inside the light bulbs to reveal the Bentley logo and welcome the driver in unexpected ways.



The 'Flying B' mascot and 'Winged B' badge will remain but could be refreshed. ‘We have some ideas for three-dimensional OLEDs,’ says Sielaff, referring to the organic LED technology that emits light in response to an electric current.



Bentley design will continue to respond to its British heritage through what Sielaff calls ‘fusion of extremes’, with the sporting and luxury models at either end – the gap now widening to allow for a larger family of cars. The latest EXP 10 Speed 6 coupé concept, we’re told, is being considered for production.



‘We have many different targets to fulfil,’ Sielaff concludes, ‘but when you smell, feel and touch the car, you must always think: “this is a Bentley”.’

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Bentley Motors website

Photography courtesy Bentley Motors

The Bentley Bentayga certainly looked the business when we encountered it in the shiny new surroundings of Bentley's Crewe CW1 showroom. Being a Bentley, it was a foregone conclusion that the company's new SUV would tick all the boxes in the comfort, refinement, luxury and craft categories. For the vast majority of buyers, of what will soon be the company's number one selling model, these requirements were all that were needed. Bentley, however, had a point to prove, namely that its premium off-roader – the very first at this rarefied market level, it claims – could go beyond merely capable and deliver the kind of rock-hopping performance usually attributed to its Solihull-based rivals.

This, we are told, is the 'ultimate luxury SUV'. Going upmarket and off-road was of course the chief USP of the original Range Rover, way back in the 1970s, but for those seeking even more luxe in their 4x4 armoury, the only option for many years was to go to an aftermarket supplier who could apply the requisite wood and leather trim and transform a proto-agricultural vehicle into something more regal (although the end result tended to be more House of Saud than House of Windsor). In the intervening decades luxury has evolved beyond all recognition, especially in the automotive sphere. Bentley might command enormous respect as a paragon of rock-solid British values, but we know full well that these are expertly filtered through the prism of professionalism that is the VW Group. Nowadays, the craft and quality that defines luxury has to be bolstered by leading performance, engineering and technology.

The Bentayga sets out to create and conquer, thanks to that formidable bank of behind the scenes expertise. Stablemates Audi, VW and Porsche have been building highly capable, high speed SUVs for years, and the Bentayga takes this experience to a whole new level, as befits its mark-up. The mechanical platform below might be shared with Audi’s new Q7 and the next generation Porsche Cayenne, but neither company – adept though they are – has Bentley’s accumulated knowledge of how to shape, style and dress an interior. As a result, the big Bentley’s accommodation roars into first place; if you want your SUV to exude quality and attention to detail, this car is unmatched. Options abound, and that’s before you’ve even dived into the bottomless pool of the company’s Mulliner division.

Below the burnished chrome and wood (we preferred the piano black finishes to the bolder excesses of cabinetry) lurks some very up-to-date technology, and not just in terms of mapping and audio (Bentley’s bespoke Naim system is one of the most powerful ever fitted to an SUV). To switch convincingly between blistering on-road performance and impressive off-road chops, the Bentayga combines raw power with an array of electronic aids.

Over the course of a couple of days in the desert playgrounds around Palm Springs, we scrambled up deeply rutted tracks, powered across the spectacular Algodones Dunes and carved up the remote Chuckwalla Valley Raceway. The Bentayga dispatched every challenge with aplomb, while making light work of the long stretches of interstates in between. On the open road, 600bhp and direct, weighty steering mean that curves and corners can be relished, while those horizon-needling highways are the perfect place to try the car’s ‘assisted driving’ modes, which allow it to essentially drive itself until it feels a legal craving for human touch on the steering wheel.

The fashion for SUVs shows no sign of abating and early indications are that this will be Bentley’s fastest-selling car, effectively doubling the company’s production volumes. Range Rover continues to burnish their flagship with more and more luxury trappings, and rumour has it an even more bespoke model is in the works. The biggest challenge of all comes from former partners Rolls-Royce, who signalled their desire to muscle in – quite literally – on this market and have since maintained a characteristic silence. For now, however, the Bentayga rules its very singular niche.

INFORMATION

From £160,200. For more information, visit the Bentley Motors website

Photography courtesy Bentley

This year’s Ambiente design fair in Frankfurt – which ran from 12–16 February – was the biggest to date, with around 137,000 visitors and 4,387 stands crammed into its 27 halls and 308,000 sq m of exhibition space. Apparently, you would have to trudge around 47km to visit every stand. It is an overwhelming, tiring experience, but the best things in life are rarely the easiest. 

When it came to particular stands, it was generally the smaller brands that stood out in terms of contemporary design, with outstanding ranges this year from Poland and Belgium, as well as strong showings from Italy and Germany itself, and (one of Ambiente’s strengths) some beautiful products from Japanese craft companies. The German Design Awards occupied their own separate exhibition, and included everything from the Bentley ‘EXP 10 Speed 6’ and the white gold ‘Lambda’ watch by Nomos to the ‘BetteLux’ bath by Bette (as featured in the Wallpaper* bathrooms supplement back in July 2015).

On the subject of trends, Ambiente’s vice-president Nicolette Naumann singled out Guzzini for its jellybean-coloured acrylic ‘Tiffany’ picnic sets as a great example of the current celebration of super-bright colours, but she also notes that ‘there seems to be a bit of a revival of Bohemian styles, with dark colours and craft-made products; I’m also seeing a lot of updated versions inspired by 1960s designs. Also, 3D printing is leading to a new interest in encrusted surfaces and origami shapes.’

Guzzini also showed some attractive prototype lemon squeezers that include an integral zester – one of those simple culinary solutions that (when well-designed like these) makes a clever idea look simple. They also belong to a some larger trends, as Naumann points out. ‘Gadgets are doing well,’ she believes, ‘but I’m also seeing a lot of innovation in porcelain and glass. Some big manufacturers such as Villeroy & Boch are doing completely new ranges like barbecue and soup sets aimed at new markets, but it’ll be interesting to see whether people will buy a special set just for barbecues or soups. Manufacturers are definitely thinking about the Asian market, but also about demographic changes – the fact that so many people have TV dinners these days, for example.’

Glassware definitely caught our eye this year. Nude, our favourite Turkish glassware brand, showed some excellent new designs, including a set of vessels with bases dipped in gold, and another set of beakers decorated with an etched grid pattern. Beakers with gold bands also featured in the ‘Hang Rack’, designed by Studio Simple for the Belgian brand Serax, which had one of this year’s stand-out stands. Among their other new designs was a set of beautifully crafted ceramic spoons, designed by the Antwerp-based florist and photographer Ellen Cole, plus stacking ceramics and half-etched bottles for water or milk.

French wine-accessories brand L’Atelier du Vin’s new ‘Perched’ carafes, meanwhile, stood out for their refined design, with heavy glass bases and smart coloured-glass stoppers, while their gold and silver carafes continued the dipped-metal theme already seen at Nude and Serax.

Legendary Italian designer Paola Navone’s signature fish motif appeared on Gense’s new ‘Amo’ cutlery, but this was the least of her contributions to Ambiente this year, as she had also been commissioned to design the main show stand for Italy, which was this year’s partner country for the show, and was also behind the Memphis-inspired 'Milano Milano' cafe.  

Needless to say German brands were well represented, with huge stands for Villeroy & Boch, Meissen and Rosenthal, but we also really liked the sturdy but cleverly detailed ‘H2O’ buckets and ‘Tip’ pedal-bins from Authentics. Moving further north-west, a mirror from the ‘Georg’ range from Denmark’s Skagerak won a German Design Award, the range having only the previous week won the Swedish Design Award for bedroom furniture of the year. Also new was Skagerak’s clever ‘Georg’ coat stand, designed by Christina Liljenberg Halstrøm, which cleverly supports itself against a wall without the need for any fixtures.

Smaller Japanese design brands were well represented as usual, but perhaps our favourite product was the ‘Y Series’ stool in walnut and beech from the Taiwanese company Lo Lat, founded in 2014.

If we had to choose one country, though, from all the rest, it would be Poland, thanks to two very different companies. Cmielów porcelain dates back to 1790, and is probably best known for its 1960s figurines, but in 2013 the company established the Cmielów Design Studio, led by designer Marek Cecula. His ‘Geometry’ collection, which includes the ‘Ergo’ tea set and ‘Domus’ salt-and-pepper set, offers an appealing contemporary take on classic Bauhaus motifs, while his ‘Atelier’ range of tableware has a zingy retro 1960s feel.

Exhibiting at Ambiente for the first time, TRE Product is a brand-new Polish design studio established by Tomek Rygalik, whose stand was packed with attractive new products such as David Derksen’s ‘1L Carafe’, whose decorative stripes were inspired by laboratory glassware. Dorothee Mainka’s ‘Mood Mirror’ collection comprises three reflective metal shelves that embrace a coloured mirror face. And Victor Legin’s ‘Balance Light’, made from thermally treated beech, includes a clever sliding counterweight which means that multiple lights can be hung at different angles to build up a striking installation. Bright ideas every one.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit Ambiente’s website

The arrival of a Bentley SUV is at once counter-intuitive and an inevitability. The marque’s current renaissance dates back to the turn of the century and has seen burgeoning global demand. As Bentley has grown, so has its customer base, extending to the kind of far-flung territories that have driven the off-roader upmarket; places where status and size correlate, while unpredictable weather and poor roads make traditional automotive signifiers rather impractical.

Demand is already high for the new Bentley Bentayga. These new markets are hungry for a blend of performance, prestige and scale. Named after a rugged peak in the Canary Islands, the Bentayga is the essence of the brand, reborn as a high-riding off-roader designed to transport one anywhere without skimping on speed, craft and accoutrements.

Most onlookers expect it to make short work of its journey to the top of the segment. Whereas the swiftest Porsche Cayennes and most luxurious Range Rovers occupy a similar bracket of price and status, turning up one dial inevitably compromises another. A Cayenne Turbo S is not the first choice to ford a river and you wouldn’t take to the track to find the handling limits of the Range Rover SV Autobiography, at least not for fun.

So can the Bentayga be all things to its customers? On paper, it certainly fulfils the brief set out by Bentley’s top brass at the outset of the project: make this the fastest luxury SUV on the market. A top speed of around 187mph (the 300kmh benchmark) and four-second-to-60 acceleration put this massive, five-metre machine in true supercar territory. The Bentayga harnesses a new version of Bentley’s mighty 600bhp W12 engine and rides high on huge wheels, with all the off-road trickery to make effortless progress through any terrain and gradient.

In the metal, the challenges are slightly more obvious. Translating Bentley’s design language into an upright four-door has scrubbed out some of the marque’s typical muscular flow. The proportions, points out Sangyup Lee, the brand’s head of exterior and advanced design, are less SUV, more shooting brake, with a large rear overhang and steeply raked rear screen that doesn’t compromise utility. ‘It has to be very modern but also 100 per cent Bentley, even without the badge,’ he says. ‘It’s not a typical SUV two-box design.’

The Bentayga has to tick multiple boxes, distilling the Bentley spirit and substantial on-board accommodation into a high-performance package that won’t turn its nose up at sauntering up the steepest slope without breaking sweat. ‘The interior is all about truth to materials, wood, metal and leather,’ says Lee. It is also a technological showcase, stuffed full of discreet IT. The back seat is a suitable place to do business; optional extras include a £20k tripartite picnic hamper and a Breitling tourbillon dashboard clock (add £150k). If the standard trim isn’t enough, Bentley’s Mulliner division will fulfil your every whim, although such sybaritic excesses make off-roading akin to hauling a lavishly appointed Chippendale armoire over a mountain, Werner Herzog-style.

This is not a subtle car. But then, no one drives an SUV to keep a low profile. ‘At Bentley we really respect our traditions,’ says Lee, ‘but the luxury market is evolving.’ Someone, somewhere, is readying an obituary for the concept of ‘stealth wealth’. 

As originally featured in the January 2016 issue of Wallpaper* (W*202)

INFORMATION

From £160,200. For more information, visit Bentley’s website

Photography: Greg White