2008 Bentley Continental Flying Spur -- on 2040-cars

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Watch Bentley hood ornament emerge to tease next Flying Spur

Thanks to Bentley's premium customization branch, Mulliner, the current Flying Spur can be equipped with nearly any feature a customer wants. But there is one feature its bigger brother, the Mulsanne, has that it doesn't: a proper hood ornament. That's about to change, however, as a teaser video and image shows the next Flying Spur will have a retractable flying B at its nose. Bentley released two teasers for the upcoming model reveal, one a sketched silhouette of the car, the other a video of an ornament emerging from the hood. The ornament will be a departure from the outgoing model, which has the flat Bentley badge on its nose. Surely Rolls-Royce fanatics will have some fun with this, but we're here for it. The more hood ornaments the better. Teaser sketches never reveal much, but there are a couple small things we might be able to pull from the dark figure. It appears the front fascia could be more blunt and vertical than the outgoing model. The overall stance of the car could be going for a longer, lower and sleeker profile. The rear also appears to be more shapely, with slightly more pronounced lips and edges. But again, these are guesses at this point, as sketches can be misleading. We expect additional teasers will give us more information in the near future. Look for the all-new Flying Spur to debut later this year. News Source: Bentley Design/Style Bentley Luxury Sedan bentley flying spur

Meet the Bentley Inspirator, your A.I. Bentayga configurator

The future of the car configurator just sprouted a tender new shoot. The Bentley Inspirator app relieves Bentayga buyers of most of the heavy lifting when they're trying to sort out what kind of image they want their super-luxe SUV to project. Usable on any Apple iOS device, the app plays a video and then scans the viewer's face for emotional cues. The video changes based on the viewer's responses to on-screen images, so theoretically, two viewers shouldn't see the same video. The app achieves this by noting 34 "facial landmarks" based on an "emotion data repository" filled with "more than 12 million emotion data points" provided by 3.4 million faces from 75 million countries. At the end of the film, the app suggests a Bentayga configuration, from colors to veneers to wheels. Now fresh from the effort, the prospective customer can apply all of his or her energies to fine tuning the result. You can download it from Bentley's site or the app store, watch the video of how it works above, and check out the press release below. Related Video: BENTLEY INSPIRATOR: PERSONAL PREFERENCE BROUGHT TO LIFE - Inspirator app is the next generation of digital car configurator - Emotion-recognition technology interprets users' facial expressions and generates vehicle configuration - Bentley Inspirator application available to download now at www.bentleymotors.com/inspirator and in Apple App Store (Crewe, 21 October 2015) Personal style preferences can now be transformed into recommendation, with Bentley's latest innovation: the Inspirator. The application monitors the users' facial expressions and reactions and interprets them in order to configure the perfect Bentley for them. Utilising any iOS device's camera function, the application's facial and emotion recognition software measures and analyses the viewer's emotion based on nuanced facial expressions. 34 facial landmarks are identified at 15 frames per second, as the viewer reacts to stimulating film content. The accurate emotion metrics algorithms are built using the world's largest emotion data repository – 3.4 million faces have been analysed in 75 countries amounting to more than 12 billion emotion data points. The viewer's reactions dictate a unique film narrative; the film changes according to what the user responds to most positively, but also deciphers their preferences, creating a unique configuration revealed at the end of the film.

VW Group plan puts Porsche in charge of a 'super-premium' division

An Automobile report looks into what's happening on the organizational and technical sides of the Volkswagen Group, and what those changes could mean for the premium brands. The wide-angle view is that Porsche appears to have been anointed to "coordinate the future activities" at Audi, Bentley, Bugatti and Lamborghini. Audi would cede Lamborghini guardianship to Stuttgart, and Ducati — via a new concern called Ducati Enterprises — would become the shepherd for VW's other Italian investments. Executives target Jan. 1, 2019, to complete the reshuffle. VW wants to save a boodle by tying up four of its five top-tier brands, and putting the one with the highest ROI in charge. Porsche, within its own house, wants to reduce expenditures by $2.3 billion per year over for four years, the savings already earmarked for improving internal processes like R&D and production. Having Porsche share those gains as well as lead development of platforms, components and future-tech strategies for the sister sports car brands could benefit everyone. In the near-term, the brands have their own plans: Bugatti CEO Stephan Winkelmann is said to want a Chiron Superleggera, a roofless and "completely reskinned" Chiron Aperta, and a track-only Chiron SS. The Superleggera could take the Chiron Sport's and Divo's Jenny Craig routines even further. The Aperta seems a natural successor to the Veyron Grand Sport, a natural evolution of the recently introduced Sky View roof, and a reskin might include numerous Divo cues. It's also said Bugatti's considering "an all-electric high-end model" in conjunction with Porsche, Rimac, and Dallara, but name one supercar or hypercar manufacturer that isn't considering a lightning-fast EV. Lamborghini, deep into work on follow-ups for the Huracan and Aventador, might get a bit of a bump with the new plan. The carbon "monofuselage" for the next V12 flagship is said to be too far developed and too complex to scrap. It puts two electric motors on the front axle, batteries in the middle, and a naturally aspirated V12 with around 770 horsepower plus another e-motor with 402 horsepower in back. The Huracan is said to get a version of the same carbon architecture at the moment, but the corporate reorganization might press pause on it. Automobile says options include continuing the Huracan/ Audi R8 twinning, but that depends on Audi saying "Ja" to a third-gen R8 with Lamborghini bones.