2015 Bentley Continental Gt Speed on 2040-cars

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Bentley opening new R&D center in Crewe

The world's fastest lorries. That's how Ettore Bugatti referred to cars from Bentley back in the day, employing the British term for trucks, long before the two became sister companies. Those immortal words will come true when Bentley launches its new SUV, which promises not only to be the most luxurious and prestigious but also the first to crack the 200-mile-per-hour mark. But it won't come without its share of investment. Bentley and its parent company Volkswagen will surely have invested untold millions to bring the luxury crossover to market, but the vehicle itself isn't the only major investment the British automaker and its German owners will have made when it does. Bentley is also embarking upon an unprecedented expansion of its headquarters in Crewe. The massive expansion plan, budgeted at over $60 million, will create over 300 new jobs and include the creation of a new research and development center on site. The facility will cover a good half-million square feet and include a design studio, R&D offices and technical workshops that will be home to some 1,300 engineers and will be "the latest step in preparing Bentley's infrastructure to bring the world's first ultra-luxury SUV to roads in 2016." Bentley may undertake some of the SUV's production at home in Crewe, but much of the work is expected to be completed alongside the next Volkswagen Touareg, Audi Q7 and Porsche Cayenne in Slovakia. The expansion plan was announced by Bentley chief Wolfgang Durheimer (also CEO of Bugatti) while George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer (Britain's equivalent to the Secretary of the Treasury or most any other government's Minister of Finance) was visiting Crewe. "Bentley is an iconic British Brand that exports around the world. Their decision to create another 300 jobs in R&D on a new site providing close to 1,000 new jobs is fantastic news for Crewe and for Britain," said Osborne. "The investment will not only create jobs at Bentley, but support many more through suppliers across the UK." MULTI-MILLION POUND SITE EXPANSION BRINGS NEW JOBS TO BENTLEY - GBP40 million planned investment into Bentley headquarters in Crewe - New research and development centre to house 1,300 Bentley engineers - 300 new roles created (Crewe, 4 December 2014) Today, Bentley has announced the latest phase in the biggest site development in the company's history.

Daily Driver: 2015 Bentley Continental GT Speed

Daily Driver videos are micro-reviews of vehicles in the Autoblog press fleet, featuring impressions from the staffers that drive them every day. Today's Daily Driver features the 2015 Bentley Continental GT Speed coupe, reviewed by Steven Ewing. With a starting price of $235,000, it's not what you'd typically consider a "daily driver," but as we find out, this Bentley is indeed a car you could happily live with every single day. You can watch the video above or read a transcript below. Watch more Autoblog videos at /videos. VIDEO TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Hey, guys. This is senior editor Steven Ewing with another Daily Driver video. I'm in a car today that you wouldn't necessarily consider to be a daily driver by the normal logic. I'm driving the $235,000 2015 Bentley Continental GT Speed Coupe. Now, as its name would suggest with the word "speed" in there at the end, this is an incredibly powerful and incredibly quick car. [00:00:30] It's powered by a 6.0-liter twin-turbo W12 engine that makes about 626 horsepower and about 606 pound-feet of torque. As you can see, it is a seriously quick car. 0 to 60 is estimated to happen in about four seconds, and this thing will top out at over 205 miles per hour. It's not just the off the line acceleration, [00:01:00] it's how much power is available while you're already at speed. I'm on the freeway right now and just with a light tap of the throttle there's just this massive wave of torque that comes on. It's just smooth, seamless, it's effortless. It's really, really fun. You can really get it going hot into a corner, let it hug it, and it really just grips. It's got a ton of power. [00:01:30] It's a really nice-handling car. A lot of people tend to think of Bentleys as being cars that you're driven in. You picture a Mulsanne pulling up with a chauffeur, but that's not the case with the Continental. In fact, Bentley's done a lot of work in recent years to drive home the point that the Continental is the driver's car. You look at things like the GT V8 S, which is one of my favorite Bentleys they've ever produced, where it's a car that despite its heft and its size and all of that, it's [00:02:00] still pretty involving. The chassis tuning is really good. The steering's pretty good. It's actually a good to drive car. On top of that, it's incredibly quiet in here.

2015 Bentley Flying Spur V8

Despite Bentley's reputation as a holier-than-thou, ultra-luxury brand, at the end of the day, the Big B is still a business. As such, ongoing trends like powertrain downsizing and model range expansion are more prevalent at Bentley than ever. Just look at the Continental range - what started as the GT W12 has expanded into the GTC W12, GT V8, GT V8 S, GTC V8, GTC V8 S, GT Speed and GTC Speed. Talk about "have it your way."
But there's good reason for that. So many of these vehicles, despite their hand-crafted, bespoke nature, are all - gasp! - plug-and-play exercises that allow Bentley to appeal to the broadest range of upper-lux buyers, while keeping development costs relatively low. It's a move that's indeed worked, the company managing to post healthy sales increases year after year. And that's only going to get better, following the launch of the Flying Spur sedan last year, not to mention the upcoming, highly anticipated SUV that's in the works. As Kevin Rose, Bentley's member of the board for sales, marketing and aftersales told me recently, "The best years are yet to come."
To further expand an already growing range, I recently hopped a plane to London to experience the second member of the Flying Spur family - the V8. This less-powerful Spur offers better fuel efficiency and a lower staring price, while not compromising any of the brand's core values of luxury and refinement above all. But to paraphrase what executive editor Chris Paukert said when he drove the Conti GT V8 in 2012, this is indeed The Thinking Man's Flying Spur. Here, less really is more.