All Entries Tagged With: "BENTLEY"

2011 Bentley Continental GT: Evolution Not Revolution

by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img Bentley Motors + Autoblog ::: 2011 Bentley Continental GT Début

WATCHING the teaser on Bentley’s posh new reveal site – ContinentalGT.com – and finding no tasty clues what-so-ever (c’mon a fender? a signal? anything?) I headed over to Autoblog which has already posted shots of the 2011 Bentley Continental GT. The industrious John Neff at work, no doubt.

If what we see is the reality that will present itself next model year, Bentley’s taken a relatively cautious, evolutionary step with its bread and butter coupe.

The most important changes to what’s billed as an all-new Continental GT – are headlights and front airdam that echo the Mulsanne saloon. The GT’s front fenders, too, have been softened to give the profile a better sense of length and less heft.

Is it prettier than the first Continental GT, released all the way back in 2003? Not so sure. More on this next week when the Continental’s officially unveiled on September 7th.

Dirk Van Braeckel Walks Us Through The Bentley Mulsanne’s Design

by Gunnar Heinrich ::: YouTube ::: 2011 Bentley Mulsanne

IN The flesh, the 2011 Bentley Mulsanne (pronounced “Mul-SAHN”) is rather imposing. In some respects those “power lines” effect a paradoxically subtle grace. But in photographs, these aspects don’t always filter through; leaving the new flagship took look bloated.

Nevertheless, whether you love or loathe the new Mulsanne’s basking shark face mixed with coupe-ified Rolls-Royce DNA, you’ll likely appreciate understanding how the Bentley design team got there.

Dirk Van Braeckel, Bentley’s design chief gives us a brief, guided glimpse of the styling elements that grace the latest Bentley to wear the Mulsanne tag.

Beijing Motor Show: “Exclusively For China”

by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img withdrawn Citroën advert via Jack Yan’s Blog ::: 2010 Beijing Motor Show

CAR companies are falling over themselves to cater exclusively to the Chinese consumer this year; 2010 being the first full year that the PRC counts as the world’s largest automotive market.

As an American consumer, I feel a little slighted. What have we been all these years, chopped liver?

Let’s leave the political, economic, and perhaps social ramifications of this attention shift aside, and also that little factor that we might all be at war over Taiwan, Near-East oil, or somebody’s loss of face inside 20 years, and consider that the US car market, perhaps still the world’s most lucrative in terms of real dollars and cents, has seldom in recent times been the platform for such grand débuts or special acknowledgments by foreign car makers.

Here’s an informal rundown of pre-Beijing Motor Show announcements:

• BMW announced a solely-for-China Long-Wheelbase 5-Series
• Mercedes said they’d début the CLS Shooting Brake Concept (at the New York Auto Show, their big announcement was the updated R-Class – joy!)
• Ferrari’s billing it’s new 599GTO as its “fastest road car ever”
• VW will show off its new flagship Phaeton
• Citroën announced the Metropolis concept, designed and built in China
• Maybach’s unveiling its fresh new face to its über-saloon at Beijing (again, why not NY?)
• Bentley’s press release read “EXCLUSIVELY FOR CHINA” as they announced the Bentley Continental Flying Spur Speed China (say that ten times fast in Mandarin) and the Continental GT Design Series China

And so on and so forth. Yes, China is presently the great new over-heated economic frontier.

That said, let’s not forget that India and Brazil are also emerging as meaty new markets, too. And neither of these countries’ governments force foreign car companies to embed with domestic car makers.

You know, once you share trade secrets with your corporate partner, when you’re no longer a collaborative force the other party tends to remember all your best plays.

Given that Chinese corporate culture is as transparent as dragon scales and that the government’s penchant for subversive market intervention is quite real (Google), there’s a distinctly awful possibility that the auto industry’s zealous forays into the Land of Mao could backfire horribly in years to come.

Ah, well. We live to learn don’t we?

Welcome to LA

IN Brazil, a sign that you’ve “made it” is a helicopter that flies you safely above the fray- to and from your gated villa. In Washington, it’s a fleet of Secret Service driven Chrysler 300s that shadow your government tagged Lincoln or Cadillac.

In Los Angeles County, where the lofty image is every bit as vital as the achievement, social status starts and ends with the car. To this end, there exist far more Bentleys in Beverly Hills than drivers with the requisite wealth to own them outright.

That said, it’s a reasonable wager that Marky Mark was good for his black on black Azure.

Angelinos know their cars better than anyone.

That brilliant red 190SL that if housed in Connecticut would rust, smell of must, and might start on a warm day is in SoCal maintained as a more perfect everyday driver than it was when Max Hoffman imported it all those years ago.

And to paint an unreasonably broad picture, the same goes for pretty much any car – from vintage 80s Honda Accord to 2010 Audi R8.

Such is the dry climate that everything metallic just lasts. And lasts.

Which explains your sighting of that odd 70s Ford that you swore  the Dude drove in The Big Lebowski. As much as LA pays lip service to anyone whose fame is older than 15 minutes, the city’s highways are surprising showcases for cars that time would’ve forgotten anywhere else.

In this vein, LA makes for much more exciting car watching than, say, Miami. There might be higher concentrations of Italian exotica in SoBe, but Floridians are all about financing, leasing, or renting the latest and greatest. Angelinos pay as much respect to a mint 1988 560SEC as they do a new CL65 AMG.

But here’s the Catch 22.

There are in fact so many Audis, Astons, Bimmers, Bentleys, Caddys, Lexii, Jaguars, Mercedes, Porsches, Ferraris, and Maseratis that for all the portent of these fine autos being poster vehicles for their drivers’ implied status and importance, their impact registers as white noise in the cattle herd of plodding traffic that forever clogs the 405.

Where else could spying not one, but three Ferrari Californias be considered everyday but in the city that has its own dedicated Ferrari/Maserati Collision Center? There’s a reason that every auto mag has a presence here. And a reason why every major auto maker has a design studio here.

Such is SoCal’s love affair with the automobile.

Hooray for Hollywood. And LA’s auto aficionados.

Details: The Mulsanne’s Flappy Paddles

By Gunnar Heinrich | Bentley Motors via YouTube

FURTHER evidence that more than anyone the Brits know that the art of luxury boils down to attention to lavish detail – even if this wasn’t quite so for assembly processes in years past. In the 2010 Bentley Mulsanne’s instance, that inimitable attention finds itself lavished on the knurled metal surfaces of the helm’s flappy paddles.

Check it out @ 0:37.

Bentleys in the Berkshires

CUTTING along Massachusetts’ western frontier, the Berkshires are a short stretch of gentrified Yankee Appalachia that act as a kind of fence to New York’s border.

Not that New Yorkers ever recognized that fence, mind, like persistent neighbors, the city’s denizens have driven up the Taconic to cross the hilly divide for coffee and one-sided conversation since time immemorial.

Partial as yours is to the similar charms of neighboring Litchfield County, Conn., Berkshire County, Mass. also makes sense for the urban weekender for offering bucolic splendor and rustic charm that’s just that-little-bit closer than Vermont.

If you’ll indulge: in the great northeastern divide between NYC and Boston, it’s Gothamites that claim the Berkshires Mountains as a retreat. Bostonians, by contrast, have Lake Winnipesaukee and the rest of New Hampshire and Maine’s wilds tucked  in their backyard.

That said, the Boston Symphony does call Tanglewood home in the summer…

Regardless, last Saturday yours had caught wind that the Bentley Drivers Club was encamped at Cranwell.

So, like rabid Bentley fans, we hop into Jacqueline’s Bimmer and made tracks to western Mass. as Cole Porter, Norman Rockwell, Nathaniel Hawthorne and probably the Continental Army had done in years past (only we did it by way of I-91 to the MassPike).

We arrive and the Loyalists the Bentley drivers have already dispersed. But lucky us, there remain a few stragglers that from what must’ve been a great party.

Following up on the events that had transpired, the Bentley Drivers Club organized a sizable rally with attending members hailing from across the English speaking world. They’d converged on the Berkshires to partake in daily road excursions over the course of three days.

The lovely (if over-developed) Cranwell resort, with castle-like manor, golf links and spa was their apt choice for base camp.

On site, I spy a Blower Bentley roaring its British racing-green self all the way from the 1920s.  Parked subtly next to a Toyota Camry, the humble commuter sedan’s probably never been so close to automotive royalty.

The 4 1/2 litre supercharged roadster’s deceptively massive. As W.O. said, there’s no replacement for displacement.

Nearby another supercharged saloon, Depression era, makes an otherwise mundane parking lot an instantly glamorous setting.

In the automotive world, the 20s and 30s really were the most stunning decades in car design. This was largely thanks to the bespoke artistry of private coach builders in the day.

And to think that Bentley lived on during a time that saw so many equally beautiful marques – Duesenburg, Hispano Suiza, Isotta Fraschini – falter then perish. It’s impressive and a little sad.

Over by the links there stands an appealing duo.

One, a voluptuous red Bentley Continental Type R , very much a product aimed at the US market and next to it, a rather upright character from the 1930s in black over tan. The sight reminds me of a scene from Goldfinger.

On closer inspection, the 30’s car appears to be the Bentley 8 Litre, an example of which bowed alongside the new Mulsanne at Pebble Beach this summer.

Observing the Continental, there appears to be much in common stylistically with the new Mulsanne.

It’s remarkable that I didn’t pick up on this earlier. But those round fenders and the low placement of the circular headlamps and parking lights (now turn signals) are dead giveaways. The only aspect that’s missing on the new sedan is the vertical chrome grille. For certain, we  now know what two door super car from the 50’s will appear alongside the Mulsanne’s coupe version – when it arrives.

We see our fill of beautiful British transport and dash over to another classic establishment just down the road called Blantyre.

Situated deep in sumptuous forest and lying quietly in Cranwell’s shadow, the luxe hotel is the understated Bentley to Cranwell’s Rolls-Royce braggadocio. There’s a long drive that curves in front of another lovely manor which is border by tennis courts and gardens.

The grounds are tranquil making Blantyre a suitably reserved alternative  should the Bentley Boys return to the Berkshires next Autumn.

In the gravel parking lot, Blantyre’s own grey Bentley R-Type saloon stands sentry.

As it does this time of year, the sun sets earlier than we anticipate prompting Jacqueline and I to decamp these luxurious surrounds for Great Barrington’s bohemian village for some din-din.

We find ourselves driving down beautiful Route 7 which curves from Lenox into Stockbridge and then finally into Great Barrington before crossing the border into Connecticut.

On Great Barrington’s busy Railroad Street, we enjoy burgers at 20 Railroad Street, a brick walled restaurant that let’s you design your own. I opt for Wasabi mayo on mine and am pleased. Jacqueline goes for Pepper Jack cheese and is sated nicely.

We conclude our gastronomic intake across the street at SoCo Creamery where we’re served the world’s best chocolate ice cream. And it is the world’s best. Hand on heart.

A delicious Saturday! What with fine scenery, cars, and food? Who knew that chasing Bentleys in western Mass. could be so satisfying?

Design Detail: Bentley Mulsanne

Cutting a new shape from an old premise.

By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG BentleyMotors.com

BENTLEY’S Mulsanne is growing on me.

While I, along with a quizzical handful of Bentley aficionados, await with baited breath to see what (doubtless plush) interior Crewe has crafted for its latest grand chariot, I’ve been pouring over the exterior shots of this handsome sedan (saloon, if we’re British).

The Mulsanne picks up where the Arnage left off by maintaining the earlier car’s préstance but they’ve adopted cues from a few other uber sedans.

Of course, there’s Rolls-Royce in those lines.  The tall, cliff-face front fenders belong to both marques as they recall the Silver Shadow / T-Series from the 60s and 70s.

And there’s Audi, too. The way the rear door’s line ignores the wheel well’s curvature in its diagonal straight-shot comes direct from a new-wave of German design theory that we’ve seen in every Audi sedan in the past decade (thought the A8 comes first to mind, somehow).

Finally, there’s the trunk (or boot, if you prefer).

The C-pillar descends softly into a high deck-lid. This is another classic Rolls/Bentley feature, albeit lifted for aerodynamics. It’s very modern to the point of being almost generic in its Euro-slickness. There’s practically no definition to the bumper from the rear three quarter profile.

In this respect, it takes what the (Maybach influenced) S-Class and CL-Class have achieved and pushed the envelope further.

Kudos to the ordinarily stolid British manufacturer carrying automotive design theory forward (in stead of backwards). Let’s just see if wears with time. If the short spell since the Mulsanne’s Pebble Beach debut are anything to judge by, chances are it’ll grow on me.

Just How Grand? The Bentley Mulsanne

Like fishermen beholding a great catch.

By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG Bentley Motors

WHATto make of Crewe’s new Mulsanne recently unveiled at Pebble Beach?

There’s much for there’s much car to behold!

Imposing and regal, the Arnage successor and the noble chariot that carries on the name – “Mulsanne” – first bestowed upon a rally car in the 1930s and then again on a rebadged Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit in the 1980s, is the next “Grand Bentley”.

The new, full-size sedan confirms that Bentley still operates in the upper echelon of the super- luxury market and ready to level with rival Rolls-Royce.

The car does, however, look slightly odd by some angles.

There’s more than a hint of Arthur C. Clarke to those projector beam phaser headlights and just a tad too much Christopher E. Bangle in those flame surfaced flanks.

There are still pearls that the ancien regime can appreciate, however.

For instance, those fat, diagonally reclining C-Pillars which handily hide rear occupants from the paparazzi and descend smoothly into the rear wheel well flanks – separate from the boot line – and finalize into the taillights are classic pre-war and immediate post-war Rolls-Royce/Bentley.

You’ll note that the Queen’s limo features rather similar hindquarters.

Then there’s the iridescent quality to the paint finish. Lustrous and true to Crewe standards of multi-faceted brilliance, it’s never the same color at any one angle but rather a symphonic melody that surprises and pleases in equal share.

That said, I can’t tell whether those large “eyes” and that open gaped front air dam remind me more of a basking shark or a whale shark. In either event, the Mulsanne carries a slightly cartoonish presence that put its under the same kind of scrutiny that Rolls-Royce has received since the Phantom’s debut in 2003.

It’s difficult to follow on a predecessor so breathtakingly elegant and delightfully grand as the Arnage. Nevertheless, the Mulsanne for model year 2010, is the next step firmly planted in the correct direction.

Grand Bentley or Bentley Grand?

By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG Bentley Motors

I’M thinking Bentley’s P.R. should rethink the title for its next concept, “The All-New Grand Bentley”.

At least for the American market. You know how car companies have different names for the same cars sold in different markets?

Mercedes-Benz sells a customer in New York a C350 and in London the same car will be called C350 “Elegance”, “Posh”, or something similarly déclassé. Or how Jag customers who opted for a Vanden Plas on this side of the Pond were buying what Brits had known as a separate marque altogether – Daimler.

And so on.

So, in these United States where we like our ‘Merican English short, to the point, and packing the biggest punch, I’m thinking that Bentley’s Arnage replacement should be referred to as “Bentley Grand”.

Oh, to be sure, even if  we called “the Grand Bentley,” it’d conjure up romantic notions of “The Grand Tour” – stopping off in old world locales with servants at your beck and call.

But most of the marque’s American customers will be new money who will know no such classic references. And a large percentage of these newcommers are going to come from the West Coast and who think of a getaway as a weekend in Vegas and…

I think you’re seeing my point by now. MGM Grand. Money, gambling, flash, sex. Escapism…what happens in Vegas…  Or even just “Grand” – a billfold of ten Benjamins. Flash. Money. Straight and to the point.

Or maybe I was just thinking of marketing that’d appeal to the typical Vette buyer… Sorry! Scratch that…

“The Grand Bentley” will do nicely.

[Linked: newgrandbentley.com]

Watch It For The Rolling Stock: S1M0NE

Rachel Roberts as “Simone” with Alfa Romeo 2600.

By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG  S1M0NE (2002) via IMCDB.org

SOME movies are best watched just for the cars.

Ronin is an example of an action movie that was just an excuse to tie-in several really wild car chase scenes together in 122 minutes. It didn’t matter what the plot was, in fact, I can’t remember the plot. But I do recall the scenes where an Audi S8 repeatedly managed four wheel power slides through the streets of Paris.

S1M0NE is another such movie.

Released in 2002, directed by Andrew Niccol, and starring Al Pacino alongside the lovely Rachel Roberts the a sci-fi-ish S1M0NE is about a dried-up director (Pacino) who resorts to activating a dead fan’s fictional, graphically animated pop-icon – “Simone”  (Roberts)- and manages then to fool the world into believing the program is a real person.

An intriguing concept, but in execution the film asks us to suspend our disbelief once too often in  lots of scenes that rely on convenient framing to mask the obvious dubiousness of the film’s plot.

That said, let’s get back to the real reason that you’ll want to put S1M0NE in your Netflix cue – the continuous artful display of magnificent cars showcased in wildly color-corrected light.

Among the classics that play a significant role in the movie’s otherwise suspect plot are a  Bentley S3 Continental “Chinese Eye” coupe, a Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman, a Jaguar XJ8 (X308), Citroen DS, and an Alfa Romeo 2600 Spider that you’ve seen in any number of Fellini films.

Unfortunately, the Chinese Eye Bentley meets a fender-bender in LA traffic in another dubious scene meant to convince us that the main characters are actually fooled by Pacino’s hoax.

But don’t let my quibbles throw you off the path to watching automotive art on the tube. For this, the movie’s well worth seeing. The black 600 on red leather interior alone should have its own star on the Hollywood walk of fame.