Yahoo Autos 2017 Bentley Bentayga
The off-road driving might be impressive, but the de rigueur semiautonomous operation is less so. As is the standard for modern luxury vehicles, the Bentayga pairs its adaptive cruise control with an automatic lane-keeping function for short stints of hands-off driving. But like many of them, Bentley’s system tends to either ping-pong back and forth in the lane or crowd the middle of the road with the wheels nearly on the center line. If you signal to pass the car in front, it won’t pull out like the Tesla Model S does, but it will accelerate toward the car ahead, which seems like the wrong order of operations. We found the system more annoying than helpful, fighting us with little steering-wheel tugs on even our most relaxed lines through corners.
Where once there were rumble strips and other motorists honking, now there’s electric power steering jerking the car back and forth. It’s not necessarily more graceful than the old system, but at least it’s less obnoxious to other motorists.
‘W’ For ‘Win’
But don’t worry, the Bentayga is fully capable of being obnoxious. The all-new 6.0-liter W-12 grunts out 600 horsepower at 6000 rpm and 664 lb-ft of torque from 1350 to 4500 and will whip this horse to 60 mph in a claimed four seconds flat. That’s sure to widen the eyes of occupants and bystanders alike.
The new W-12 shares its bore spacing with its predecessor but no parts. Bentley shaved 66 pounds from this generation, an impressive feat with such a dense box of mechanical parts. Engineers pulled precious ounces from everything-the block, heads, crank, and cams to name just a few. The one system that isn’t lighter is the fuel injection, which now has direct and port injectors. At idle and under full load, the direct injectors do their precise work, while the port injectors are engaged at part throttle, when they’re said to better mix fuel and air while reducing emissions. Bentley also claims the W-12 is 10 percent more efficient than its predecessor, with cylinder deactivation shutting down six cylinders when conditions are right and a “sail mode” that decouples the engine from the transmission when the driver is off the throttle at higher speeds. We noticed neither system at work.
Product-line director Guest says that twin-scroll turbos are much of the reason the W-12 is all-new-the engineers couldn’t fit the faster-spooling turbos onto the old engine. Here, they’re so snug against the block that they’re almost integrated into it. And they actually are integrated into the exhaust manifolds. New oil pumps make sure the turbos get a steady supply of fresh oil even at extreme off-road angles.
Immaculate Interior
Guest also tells us that the sound insulation that enables Bentley’s famously serene interiors means that those worried about off-road dust in their Bentleys have nothing to fear. Like any Bentley, the Bentayga uses triple seals around all openings, and sound waves are smaller than any particulates. “Once you’ve insulated for noise, you’ve insulated for everything,” he says.
The Bentayga’s interior is one you want to keep pristine. Buyers can choose from 15 colors of hide to trim the cabin, in three different two-tone layouts, plus contrast or matched stitching and piping. There are seven different veneers-heck, there are 14 different seatbelt colors. Not only does the instrument panel still use physical gauges with real needles, but those gauges are protected behind a sheet of actual mineral glass, rather than the plastic used on just about every other vehicle. The speaker grilles are even designed to mimic high-end stitching.
And of course that’s only the beginning. Buyers can spend $5715 on extracost paints, $7870 for the Touring Specification technology package, $11,015 to replace the three-place rear bench with two individual thrones, $7155 for a pair of removable tablets to put in front of those seats, and $28,500 on carbon-fiber trim. Plus, a ton of other stuff, including pie-in-the-sky customization. It’s pretty easy to send the base price of a Bentayga from $232,000 to well north of 300 grand.
But the coolest (and most appalling) thing in the Bentayga interior is the optional Breitling clock set atop the dashboard. It’s available in either white or rose gold, with a face of black or white mother-of-pearl, and studded with eight diamonds. Cost? 150,000 euros, or about $160,000. Only a handful of craftspeople make the clocks, which take three months apiece.That exclusivity guarantees that Bentley will sell the four it can offer every year.
Even without that clock, the Bentayga should vacuum massive amounts of cash into Bentley’s coffers. As the Volkswagen Group, in the wake of its diesel scandal, scrutinizes the business case for every last model in its portfolio, maybe Bugatti will want to take its own crack at that “world’s fastest truck” business.
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