The British luxury auto major, Bentley is thinking of expanding its Bentayga vehicle lineup by introducing several new variants in near future. These include a long wheelbase version, a coupe styled version of the car and possible a limited-edition high performance edition in a similar vein to the Bentley Continental GT3-R.
“I’m confident that it will happen and our team is working on the case for this car, but it is not yet approved for production,” explained company boss Wolfgang Dürheimer in an interview with Autocar. “We are the first in the luxury SUV space and at the moment unopposed, but there are lots of rivals coming to the sector. The question we need to answer is if there is space for all these different body styles.”
The long-rumored Bentley Coupe is moving closer to production and will possibly make its appearance in the market around 2019 if it gets the approval from the board of its parent organisation, the Volkswagen Group. Further, it is also reported that the debut of Coupe version would schedule with that of a facelift of the standard car.
The report also suggests that the development of an extended-wheelbase Bentayga is already undergone following the Mulsanne EWB model’s sales success. “In the Middle East and China it is almost exclusively what we sell,” said Dürheimer. “Those markets have shown what is possible and it makes business sense; the engineering is not rocket science, but it is expensive because when you change components like the side panels and roof you add a lot of cost.”
Head of the engineer at Bentley, Rolf Frech, unveiled that a most powerful version of the W12 Bentayga was also under consideration, however, it would only be produced for a limited-edition model. “We can make dynamically focused cars that are extreme, but only for very special occasions,” he said. “They cannot impinge on Bentley’s core DNA.”
The standard W12 Bentayga is powered by a twin-turbocharged, 6-liter engine that is mated to an eight-speed automatic gearbox and fire out 600 bhp and generates 900 Nm of torque. With this mechanism, it can make 0 to 100 kmph in 4.1 seconds and can do a top speed of 301 kmph.
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