With Jaguar, Infiiniti and other manufacturers eyeing the booming segment of entry level luxury crossovers, Bentley is creating a new segment at the other end of the luxury spectrum. Bentley has greenlit for production a $250,000 premium crossover utility vehicle that will be based on a Volkswagen Group platform shared with the next generation Audi Q7 and a proposed CUV from Lamborghini, shown as the Urus concept.
VW Group has been fairly adept at slicing their luxury wurst carefully so that its premium brands don’t directly compete with each other, so the Lamborghini CUV is likely to slot in below the Bentley in price. The new Bentely CUV, expected by some to wear the name Falcon, will likely go on sale in 2016. Though roughly based on the EXP 9 F concept, Bentley says that there will be significant changes in the production version. The EXP 9 F, pictured above, was widely criticized for its styling.
While the Automotive News story on the new Bentley CUV says, “In the future, new and redesigned Bentley vehicles will share platforms and engines with other Volkswagen Group brands,” that’s not a new situation since the Bentley Continental models already share a platform with the Audi A8 and the VW Phaeton. Bentley currently uses brand specific engines but they are all VW Group designs built in a VW Group factory.
So much fail, and so little time.
For a quarter mil, I’d but a VW Tourang, a Mercedes S Class and a Porsche Boxter with enough cash left over for taxes, registration and insurance.
Exactly. For my 250K, I’m going to build several cars to my specs… an LSx’d XK8 convertible, an armored Town Car, a custom Mark VII, a lifted Cherokee for off road fun, and finally drop a 472 in an otherwise restored 4100 RWD Cadillac for sh*** and giggles.
“For a quarter mil, I’d but a VW Tourang, a Mercedes S Class and a Porsche Boxter with enough cash left over for taxes, registration and insurance.”
It just doesn’t make sense.
The Bentley SUV will be a good addition to your Rolls Royce sedan and Aston Martin coupe. A VW Tourang, a Mercedes S Class and a Porsche Boxter aren’t.
This thinking only works when you’re into foreign owned British marques.
Foreign owned British marque is what this article is about.
You crazy? You know how many pro athletes and rappers are going to be all over this?? Bentley knows the US market alone makes the business case for it. Wonder what took so long?
Pro athletes, rappers, middle eastern oil barons, yeah sure they will buy a few.
But the real target demographic is:
SpongeBob Squarepants – it looks like it was made just for him!
Maybach thought the same thing.
Right. This is a lucrative market for Volkswagen Group, and so as long as it doesn’t go against the Bentley brand values, I don’t see any issue with it. It’s no worse than the Continental, and certainly no worse than Rolls-Royce models all becoming really fancy BMWs after MY2002.
Just what the world and this DUMKOPF island needs, more over-powered, unneeded, AWD crap. The roads are DRY 99% pretty much EVERYWHERE? Thanx VW. AGFY.
If you don’t like it, don’t look at it.
I love the thousand spoke wheels! And all the grilles! And how it looks like a derpy walrus when you consider the whole front fascia! Coming in 2015 to a Moscow night club near you, the Falcon.
Just hideous. And Bentley needs a CUV even less than Jag does.
I’d say this look is more likely, however:
http://i4.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article85176.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/image-1-for-richard-hammond-14-10-11-gallery-265233285-85176.jpg
Also, the Chinese have already done a mock-up for their market!
http://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/news/geely-englon-sc7-and-sx6-bentley-suv-cloned-photo-gallery-44380-7.jpg
Ugh.
I would agree with your first picture as being a more realistic version of this Bentley, however their web site has a “coming soon” silhouette of it and it shows a definite bump up of the rear fender panel like the one pictured above and not straight back like your picture shows. My guess is that it will be something in between
http://www.bentleymotors.com//world_of_bentley/news/green_light_for_bentley_suv/
It also has a news item confirming the project has been green lighted
Maybe it will look more like this…
http://hugdablock.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/2015-Bentley-SUV-render-image.jpg
The EXP 9F concept pictured above was not well-received by the public (for exactly the reasons you’ve mentioned)…and so Bentley has scrapped the design and gone back to the drawing board. You needn’t worry about this going into production as-is, but the basic shape will probably be the same.
Man oh man. The luxury car market has to be booming for this thing and others akin to be a reality. Revolution is on hold, the occupiers have been ignored.
Remember…the RICH are job creators. Their children will inheret wealth and become a permanent nobility class over yours.
You (and your children) will be their servants and their wealth will trickle down all over your face.
Nothing against the rich but that trickle has to be scattered among alot more faces. I suppose if I were rich I would get one or something like it too. Can’t take it with you but to your point you can pass it on.
“Their children will inheret wealth and become a permanent nobility class over yours.”
BTSR that already happened.
This is a perpetual motion wealth machine; It makes so much profit for VW stock holders that they can go out and buy a new one.
While I’m not opposed to Bentley making an SUV (not like it matters anyway), I am opposed to it looking anything like that.
A Bentley SUV should look like this:
http://www.madle.org/bearhs05.jpg
That’s the Bentley Cross-cabriolet to be built in China for the Russian market at a later date
LOL I just now looked at the link.
New for 1979! The Dodge Polara Silverado 300D Cabrio Hispano-Suiza Edition!
As unclassy as this looks, my biggest complaint is that it’ll just be an expensive Volkswagen, same for the Lamborghini potty joke.
Poll: Which offends you more, this, the Jag, or the Lexus LF whatever?
Lexus
Jag
Bentley
Most -> least… The Jag just for being boring
Porsche Cheyenne: The 914 and 924 may’ve been initially proposed as VWs, at least they were genuinely sporty if slow. The Cayenne is a VW as well, but is not sporty in any sense of the word.
Porsche Macan: At this point I learned that Porsche cannot make cars anymore, only variants of existing cars, and the “Legacy” and “Heritage” that they bank on so often means nothing compared to coporate greed.
Lamborghini Utter: You’ll know why after looking it for a mere 5 seconds.
Lexus LF: Elegance? Whats that?
Bentley thing: Its a Volkswagon for morons.
Jaguar thingy: I lost interest in Jaguar when I learned that their latest, well hyped F-Type comes with a detuned V8 at top trim.
You echoed my thoughts, although while the Bentley doesn’t offend my eyes as much, its very existence offends my brain. I expect this nonsense from “mainstream” luxury Lexus and even Jaguar, but I thought uber brands Bentley and Rolls Royce were beyond this level of stupidity. Lambo going to come out with a stilted Aventador too, VAG?
Actually, yes. There is a planned Lamborghini SUV…
Same really, but with Bentley being owned by VW I expect the brand to be abused only for its badge and degenerated into making pricey VW Jettas soon.
Wow. A quarter million bucks for the ultimate Touareg. I wouldn’t spend that kind of money on this if I had it.
In white with a 4 cyl… I’d hit it.
But those donks would have to go. 16″ steelies, baby moons and big meats.
Baby moon hubcaps on steelies? Kenmore are you stuck on 80s mode again?
’60s… Lorenzian imprinting.
“Gaaaaaa… Round like Mommy!”
Is it me or does every circular element on that thing look like the deflector array on the USS Enterprise?
Great opportunity to buy 2006 Phaetons with low miles for 20k to 25k, do a 6″ lift on them, add some cladding, rebadge them, and resell them at a phat profit.
Didn’t Baruth have one for awhile? Prob kicking himself now, could have made a killing.
This will probably be a moneymaker for the brand, but this does so look like a superimposition of Bentley styling cues and surface language onto a generic SUV package, capped by a beigetastic catalog-SUV greenhouse.
Perhaps I just don’t “get it”, but how is this different from the badge engineering GM foisted upon us in the 1980’s? Aren’t the Touareg, Audi Q7, and Porsche Cayenne basically the same vehicle with different badges (okay, they probably have different engines)? Won’t the Bentley simply be more of the same with a different badge?
Or 80’s Chrysler for that matter, the company that gave us the K-Car platform in many sizes with many different names, a prototype for future VW.
I personally consider it all the same, while VW often disguises its products better than GM did back in the day you’re still getting the same car no matter which disguise its in.
Unlike the GM clones (or Mercurys for that matter), the Toureg, Q7 and Cayenne all have their own distinctive interior and exterior designs, power train differences, seating differences and even different wheelbases. Same underlying platform, of course, and all have access to the same corporate parts bin.
It is worse because Bentley is a very premium brand. The same platform could work but you need to have the interior worked by a coach builder to command that type of money in the long run.
Of course all Bentleys have exquisitely-handbuilt interiors, even if they *are* full of Volkswagen and Audi parts. I found the materials in the 2013 Bentley Mulsanne to be considerably better than even those in the 2013 Rolls-Royce Phantom.
There goes the neighborhood.
I love Bentley and so I would hate to see the company tarnish its reputation. It would be soooo easy to churn these out like they do the Cayenne, but with a six-figure premium. But since they went to all the trouble to make sure that the SUV’s assembly and craft occurred in Crewe—rather than in Bratislava/Leipzig like all of the other VW Group SUVs—this needs to be a *really* nice vehicle…especially at $250K. It also needs to be very classy, rather than garish and over styled. And once the SUV does debut, it’s going to be very offensive if it lingers on old tech/interfaces while the Cayenne and Touareg get brand new stuff. I’ll forgive them on the anachronistic Arnage/Azure/Brooklands…but the Continental had very dated technology by the time it was redesigned in 2011 (despite the fact that the Phaeton was updated *twice* over the same period in terms of tech). So it’s not like it’s beyond VW Group to let a flagship product linger.
Well, Ettore Bugatti always said W.O. Bentley made very fast trucks…
That’s kind of funny, because while Bentleys might have been called trucks, Delahaye’s race cars actually had truck engines…
They will sell all of these and then some. I am so sick and tired of the same morons predictably saying that rappers, athletes, Middle Eastern people will be the buyers of these things. The fact is that most of these super expensive vehicles and even Escalades are bought by old white men.
Thank you. That needed saying.
I’m an old white man and I’d do a second mortgage to afford the Dennis Rodman Edition of this.
oddly, I saw my first Bentley Mulsanne today down at the Buckhead post office. I was very black and imposing with a bunch of chrome like a funeral car for a 1 percenter and my feelings were mixed like it was impressive but a waste of money. Now this SUV is just Toyota ugly at $50,000 let alone that crazy price. Autoweek says it looks like a Studebaker! ROFL
Autoweek must read Jalopnik because I’ve been making that claim since the first concept images leaked out last year.
http://jalopnik.com/5892195/bentley-quickly-reconsiders-design-of-exp-suv?comment=47823125#comments
GIS “1960 Studebaker Lark wagon”.
Do it.
It’s eerie…