2020 Bentley Continental Gt Gtc W12 First Edition Conv.~$309,315 Msrp!~loaded on 2040-cars

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2021 Bentley Bentayga Speed previewed in official photos ahead of debut

The Bentley Bentayga Speed is about to be revealed (again), but this time it’ll be sporting all the upgrades applied to the 2021 model year Bentayga. Bentley provided us with a few official preview images of the SUV in camouflage ahead of its unveiling next Tuesday evening. You can check the three photos out in the gallery above. Differences between the upcoming Speed and regular Bentayga are plenty noticeable if you direct your attention to the rear of the vehicle. ItÂ’s sporting an aggressive, winged spoiler atop the roof that produces more downforce than the standard BentaygaÂ’s spoiler. Additionally, this model gets a unique quad-tipped exhaust design and rear diffuser. The front bumper is subtly changed to be a bit more pointy and threatening, but you need to look closer to see the differences here. The biggest change of all will be under the hood. This Bentayga will be rocking the uprated W12 engine that makes 626 horsepower and 664 pound-feet of torque. Since it was just released a little over a year ago, we donÂ’t expect the powertrain to be going through any major revisions. ItÂ’ll likely retain its crown as the “worldÂ’s fastest SUV” with a 190-mph top speed. ItÂ’s 0.5 mph faster than a Lamborghini Urus, so we considered them even. Maybe Bentley has gained something aero-wise with the revisions — weÂ’ll have to wait for the reveal to know. The 0-60 mph time of 3.9 seconds will likely remain unchanged, though. Expect all of the extra niceties announced for the standard Bentayga V8 to be making their way to the Speed, too. You can read our in-depth reveal post for all the details there. Watch out for the revised Speed to make its debut next week. Related video:

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.

Bentley CEO Adrian Hallmark explains carmaker's situation and plan for recovery

In August, we posted on some of the issues plaguing Bentley at the moment, namely the large loss the carmaker's posted this year. The same Autocar piece we referenced, carmaker CEO Adrian Hallmark said Bentley would not be making more sports cars. Bentley wrote to us to clarify that a single year's loss isn't a calamity, that "it is a mistake to suggest that sports cars are the same as GTs," and that the brand "will continue to design, engineer, and craft" GT cars. We must note, though, that at the time, Hallmark himself said, "The sports car sector – like our own...." More recently, Hallmark expounded on some of the factors slowing the company down this year, from delayed launches to exchange rates. Through the first nine months of the year, Bentley sold 6,654 units, an 11 percent decline from the 7,498 units sold through the first nine months of 2017. In addition to other matters like huge investments in new technologies, that helped the Crewe carmaker to a $44.7-million year-over-year drop in revenue, and a $156-million overall loss, compared to a $35 million profit over the same period last year. On top of declining sales overall, the nine-month delay in launching the Continental GT, the brand's second-best seller, was the first of two big issues causing red finances. Hallmark said the Continental GT "just wasn't ready for launch. But we'd paid for it – we'd paid all the money out, but not got any money back in." Having got that sorted, the second issue arose: WLTP certification. Unlike the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) before it, the Worldwide harmonized Light vehicles Test Procedure requires every model variant get tested for certification. Hallmark told Automotive News Europe, "We were not quick enough unfortunately to book capacity or prioritize our derivatives within some of the group processes to get them certified on time." Bentley wasn't alone in this; Volkswagen had only managed to get seven of its 14 models approved by September 1 when the WLTP rules took effect. Bentley's much smaller scale exacerbated the problem, turning the situation "close to catastrophic." Hallmark said the snafu robbed the Bentayga of 300 to 400 sales - a gigantic number with respect to a $200,000 vehicle - and pushed the Bentayga plug-in hybrid launch back to March 2019 so Bentley could get volume models certified. Furthermore, preparing for Brexit hasn't been easy on any of the UK's manufacturers.