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California Vegans Want Bentley to Abandon Leather

Photo credit: Máté Petrány/Road&Track
Photo credit: Máté Petrány/Road&Track

From Road & Track

Bentley is known to feature plenty of the richest leathers in its interiors, using up to 20 animal hides in their upholstery and trimmings per car. But according to Bentley's Director of Design Stefan Sielaff that can be changed if a customer doesn't want any animal hides in their car.

Auto Express reports that Sielaff, speaking at a Financial Times event, announced that Bentley's Mulliner department is working on some unique interior solutions for its vegan customers:

You can't sell an animal-containing product like a Bentley, with 20 leather hides, to someone with a vegan lifestyle. We've been talking to these customers, in California especially, and they're asking us what can we give them. We do a lot of custom-made and coach-built solutions, and therefore we want to satisfy these customers because they are the peak of a trend. We will shortly present a Bentley with a vegan interior; it'll give you a luxury sensation but with a different way–protein leather, mushroom leather, jellyfish material.

Photo credit: Máté Petrány/Road&Track
Photo credit: Máté Petrány/Road&Track

Protein leather, also known as "pleather," is made from oil in the form of plastic, either PVC or polyurethane. Essentially, the plastic is bonded to a fabric backing. Mushroom leather, also known as "muskin" is a biodegradable vegetal leather, extracted from mushroom caps and tanned using chemical-free methods. Jellyfish material is another biosynthetic compound.

Photo credit: BBC/Top Gear
Photo credit: BBC/Top Gear

So, just to recap: Bentley's vegan customers have issues with hides, but no problem with 600-horsepower W12s in their 5400-lb SUVs. Right.

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