2000 Bentley Arnage on 2040-cars

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Bentley builds its final 6.75-liter V8, ending a 61-year production run

Bentley has just finished its very last 6.75-liter V8. While engines come and go, this is significant because Bentley has been building this engine, known as the L-series, for 61 years. This final engine will go in the 30th and last Bentley Mulsanne, a 6.75 Edition by Mulliner, marking the end of the flagship sedan. The L-series engine was first introduced in 1959, and according to Bentley, it was developed in order to develop more power than its existing inline-six without adding weight or taking up more space. The engine in fact weighed 30 pounds less than the six-cylinder, and it made about 180 horsepower. That original engine "only" had 6.2-liters of displacement, and it wasn't until 1971 that it would reach 6.75 liters thanks to increased stroke. This final version of the engine is significantly different from its fuel injection to its twin-turbochargers, but is based on the same design. And with 530 horsepower and 811 pound-feet of torque, it's the most powerful iteration of the engine. At 61 years, the Bentley engine is arguably the V8 with the longest production run. While the first-generation Chevy small block V8 was introduced earlier for the 1955 model year and is still built in crate engine form, GM stopped using it in production cars in 2002. Far fewer Bentley engines were built, though, with a total over 36,000, as opposed to the millions of Chevy small blocks in the world. Of course, volume is sort of the antithesis of what makes a Bentley a Bentley. With the 6.75-liter engine out of production, all of Bentley's engines are derived from VW Group engines, from its W12 to the plug-in hybrid V6. Related Video:    

Bentley Mulliner Bacalar will be inspired by the EXP 100 GT

On March 3, 2020, at the Geneva Motor Show, Bentley and in-house customization shop Mulliner will unveil a new limited-edition vehicle that is billed as the "future of coachbuilding." Ahead of the debut, the official name has been announced: Bentley Mulliner Bacalar.  Thus far, there are few official details about the vehicle. Bentley says it will use ethically sourced and sustainable materials and will have a design inspired by the electric and autonomous EXP 100 GT concept that debuted in 2019. It is described as representing grand touring "at its most exhilarating," so it sounds like it'll be focused more on luxury rather than performance.  If a previous report is true, the Bacalar could be a two-seater with absolutely no roof. In the unconfirmed proposal, the supposed vehicle would be similar in looks to the EXP 100 GT, would be limited to roughly 12 examples, and would cost in the millions of dollars. Only time will tell how accurate this report proves to be, but considering other manufacturers such as McLaren, Aston Martin, and Ferrari have recently released similar windshieldless vehicles, we know the interest for this type of vehicle currently exists in high-end circles. It's anybody's guess as to what Bacalar references or means. Quick Google sleuthing shows nothing more than an extremely nice-looking vacation destination in Mexico. It's home to Lago Bacalar, or "The Lake of Seven Colors." Translated to Latin, bacalar is bacalao, which is salted and/or dried codfish eaten in Spanish and Latin American cultures. Maybe it will somehow tie into the sustainability aspect, but it's unclear. Expect small teasers and more information to drip before the full deluge in March. Related Video:

Gliding on the ice at Bentley's fantasy camp

It was just before 2:00 PM when I landed in Helsinki, bleary-eyed and more than slightly disoriented, after a late-night departure from New York and an early-morning connection in Amsterdam. I was staring at the departures board. There was one more flight to go before I could join Bentley for Power on Ice, its annual ice driving experience in the northerly town of Kuusamo, but there was a problem: There were two HEL-KAO flights on the board, both slated to leave at 4:30, and it was impossible to discern which was Bentley's chartered flight to the alpine ski area. Nonplussed and unable to utter a word in Finnish, I approached a gate agent with rudimentary English to see if she knew which flight was mine. "I'm sorry, sir," she said in an Finnish take on the Omaha dialect, "Your plane does not seem to exist." I winced. Of course it didn't. "My" plane was way out on the tarmac, far away from proletariat jumbo jets, accessible only through a gate that the automaker had staffed and commandeered for the afternoon. It was an auspicious start to three days of attending Bentley's exclusive fantasy camp for its affluent super-fans, which purportedly exists to answer the question: What can you give the Bentley fan who already has everything? For drivers more accustomed to making graceful entries and exits in their posh vehicles, several days of power sliding on a private track more than suffices. You need not be a Bentley owner to participate in the program, but an aficionado of the brand with some cash burning a pretty big hole in the pocket. For the better part of a decade, Bentley has decamped to Kuusamo, the town located just south of the Arctic Circle, to prove the British performance bona-fides of its lineup on 19 square miles of frozen Kuusamojarvi lake, as part of the wintertime Power on Ice event. The program satisfies the need of high-end performance enthusiasts who want something different than arriving at another five-star hotel for another weekend of good eating, drinking, and relaxing. Plenty of brands assert that they have a bespoke answer for discerning customers, but Power on Ice is truly different. You need not be a Bentley owner to participate in the program, but an aficionado of the brand with some cash burning a pretty big hole in the pocket.