2013 Bentley Continental Gt Conv on 2040-cars

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A faster Bentley Bentayga Speed is coming

With 600 horsepower on tap, the Bentley Bentayga already claims the mantle as the fastest, most powerful SUV on the market. The latest reports indicate that there's an even faster, more powerful version in the works. After speaking with Bentley CEO Wolfgang Durheimer at the Beijing Motor Show this week, Auto Express reports that a Bentayga Speed is on the way. "If you're asking whether there would be Speed versions of the Bentayga eventually," said Durheimer, "then yes, you might expect that." Details, as you might have expected, remain unconfirmed at this point. However the latest Continental GT Speed packs 633 horsepower from its 6.0-liter twin-turbo W12 – 66 horses more than the standard twelve-cylinder Continental GT. And the Mulsanne's 6.75-liter twin-turbo V8 produces 505 hp in standard trim and 530 in Speed spec for a difference of 25 hp. If the Bentayga Speed follows a similar formula, we can expect a solid 650 hp or so. That ought to help push the SUV past 60 in less than its current 4.0 seconds, and on past its stated 187-mph top speed. The Speed version isn't the only variant of the Bentayga said to be in the works. We're also anticipating a diesel version as well as a hybrid. We wouldn't be surprised to see a lighter V8 model, too, as we have on the Continental. And a fastback model in the mold of the BMW X6 and company is also reportedly under consideration. Beyond the Bentayga, Bentley is said to be closely evaluating what to develop next. The choice is between the EXP 10 Speed 6 sports coupe concept on the one hand, and a smaller crossover on the other. The answer could depend heavily on how the Bentayga performs in the Chinese market. Related Video:

Pre-Race notes from the 2015 Nurburgring 24-Hours

Autoblog has come to the German countryside to watch the Nurburgring 24-Hour race, and just one day in, we have to say it's outstanding. Le Mans has been the highlight of our summer racing schedule for the past few years, the 'Ring 24-Hour event being the appetizer we always skipped. Earlier this year, however, while visiting Miami to check out the Cigarette Racing 50 Marauder GT S, we met Scott Preacher. He oversees digital marketing for both Cigarette and AMG during the week, then comes to Germany to compete in the VLN race series on the weekends, driving an Aston Martin Vantage GT4 for Team Mathol. If Le Mans is the Oscars of endurance racing, the Nurburgring 24-Hour race is the Screen Actors Guild award – the one voted on by the actors, for the actors. In this case it's the race by the teams and fans, for the teams and fans, even though the increasing manufacturer presence has altered the team equation. We were told that it wasn't so long ago that true privateers could win the overall, but that's not really the case anymore. Front-running teams have heavy factory involvement – Audi Sport Team Phoenix, for instance, which finished in first and third last year, has its own 'Ring race center and is running the 2016 R8; Aston Martin is represented by Aston Martin Racing and Aston Martin Test Center, and Bentley has a Bentley Motors team and uses HPT to run another team. The fan component hasn't changed, though, and you can't talk about the race for more than 60 seconds before someone brings up the battalions of spectators. Every driver we spoke to cited them as the most incredible part of this race after the track itself. It feels to us like a giant German Sebring, with thousands of people camped out in the ginormous, forested infield, many of whom have been here since Monday erecting their ornate camping compounds. There will be parties everywhere Saturday night, and so much bratwurst on the grill that the drivers can smell it when as they're blasting full speed through Wehrseifen. Even when we drove a Mercedes S63 AMG Coupe on a lap before the race, the fans waved like it was a competition. Scott Preacher's Australian co-driver Robert Thompson said, "You come around a corner and it's like you're driving full speed through the middle of a carnival." The race field itself could also be called a carnival, with an officially invited field of more than 170 cars. Even on a track that's 24.4-km long, that's like racing on the 405 at midday.

VW announces reworked 6.0 W12 TSI engine

Nobody makes more engines with a dozen cylinders than the Volkswagen Group. They're W12s, of course, owing to the novel shape of their cylinder banks. Now the German industrial giant has announced a comprehensively reworked version of that engine at the same Vienna Motor Symposium where it presented its new 2.0-liter turbo four. The new W12 retains the same arrangement and the same 6.0-liter displacement, but updates it all with the latest powertrain tech. In place of Audi's FSI direct injection and Bentley's TMPI multi-point injection, the engine has adopted a new TSI system. It's also got a pair of new twin-scroll turbochargers, APS-coated cylinders, a new cooling system, active engine mounts, cylinder deactivation, and a stop/start system. And – crucially for application in the upcoming Bentayga – it has an oil circuit designed for off-road use. The revised package now produces 600 horsepower and 664 pound-feet of torque. Considerably more than the 567 hp and 516 lb-ft offered in the Bentley Continental GT W12, but less than the GT Speed, which we suspect will get an even more powerful version of this new engine. It's also more powerful than even the top version of Audi and Bentley's 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8, to make the W12 a more compelling option. Of course that's just as far as the Continental GT is concerned. The W12 has also found use in the Continental GTC and Flying Spur, as well as the Volkswagen Phaeton and Audi A8, and could find further applications under the Flying B emblem and elsewhere in the future. VW says that in the right application (say, in the production version of the Bentley EXP 10 Speed 6 concept, for example), the new twelve-pot could deliver 0-62 times of under four seconds and a top speed in excess of 186 miles per hour. Volkswagen at the 36th International Vienna Motor Symposium Dr. Heinz-Jakob Neusser: "The car of the future will continue to fascinate people" - CO2 reduction, electromobility and digitalisation are the greatest challenges facing the automotive industry - The future of the internal combustion engine will be characterised by high rpm diesel and high-performance three-cylinder TSI engines - Laser roughening – innovative coating process in large-scale production - New 6.0 W12 TSI with 447 kW (608 PS) – performance and refinement - New generation of EU6 TDI engines for light-duty vehicles Dr.