1993 Bentley Continental R Mulliner Park on 2040-cars

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Now you can order a Bentley with real stone trim

Order up a new Bentley and you'll have some choices to make. After choosing which model, you'll need to select from over a hundred standard exterior paint colors and a staggering array of trim options – and now, interior stone veneers. Mulliner will now outfit your Bentley with actual stone trim. Now we know what you're probably thinking: stone adds weight. But here's the kicker: Bentley's new stone veneers measure just 0.004 inches thick. That's less than the breadth of a human hair, and (according to the automaker) makes these trim pieces not only very lightweight, but also translucent. The rocks are sourced from quaries in India, cured using fiberglass and resin, and finished by the Mulliner coachbuilding team back at the factory in Crewe, England. Customers will be able to select between a natural finish or in four tints to install on a new Continental or Flying Spur. So if you were hoping for a little extra ballast in your 5,300-lb Bentayga or 6,000-lbs Mulsanne, we're afraid you'll just have to choose a different interior accent. STONE VENEERS BY MULLINER – THE NEXT LEVEL OF MODERN BRITISH LUXURY - Bentley pushes boundaries of cabin luxury with new and rare materials - Lightweight and contemporary feature developed by Mulliner - Four exclusive colours: Galaxy, Autumn White, Terra Red and Copper (Crewe, 04 January, 2016) Bentley Motors' bespoke coach-building division, Mulliner, is introducing the next level of modern British automotive luxury – stone veneers. This innovative interior finish utilises state-of-the-art stone veneer technology to make a luxurious, contemporary feature of a natural product formed over 200 million years. The slate and quartzite stone is sustainably sourced from hand-selected quarries in Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh, India – a nation with an ancient and rich culture of stone masonry. The sections of stone are split from larger pieces and cured using glass fibre and a bespoke resin. Finally, they are shaped and hand finished by Bentley's world-renowned Mulliner coachbuilding team at the company's headquarters in Crewe, England. The stone surfaces of the veneers are just 0.1 mm thick, meaning that they are both extremely light and translucent, allowing the elegant grain and pattern in the stone to be visible to the interior occupants.

Bentley Mulsanne convertible expected to be greenlit this year

That was quick - it was only was only three weeks ago that the Bentley Mulsanne Vision concept, a droptop take on the brand's flagship sedan, was sketched out for the Pebble Beach crowd. Now Autocar reports that a production version is expected to be approved later this year, with a launch something like two years away. And even though it hasn't been officially given the go-ahead, it has a price: "at least £275,000" ($436,232 U.S.). That price would make for a £50,000 premium ($79,313 U.S.) - at least - over the current UK price of the Mulsanne sedan.
Just as the Continental GTC differs from its coupe sibling, Autocar says the Mulsanne cabrio would be unique from the A-pillars back as compared to the sedan. Shortened by roughly six inches in both length and wheelbase, frameless doors and a lowered windshield will contribute additional rakishness, and note the rear fender treatment meant to evoke the fifties-era Bentley R Type in the upper right corner of the sketch above. At launch it is predicted that power will come from the twin-turbo 6.75-liter V8, but Autocar predicts that V12 power being developed for the production version of the EXP 9 F SUV will eventually find its way up front.

Bentley shifting W12 engine production to UK

Who would you think would be the largest producer of 12-cylinder engines in the world? Mercedes? BMW? Ferrari? Think again: as you might have guessed from the headline, it's Bentley. The thing is that, while all Bentley automobiles are manufactured in the UK, its engines aren't: while the 6.75-liter V8 in the Mulsanne is made at home, the innovative 6.0-liter twin-turbo W12 engine in Continental models so equipped (like the newer 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8) is shipped in from Germany. But that won't be the case any longer.
Bentley has just announced that production of the W12 engine is moving to its home base in Crewe by the end of this year. The shift in production (which follows the migration of the Flying Spur from Dresden to Crewe in 2007) will create 100 jobs in the UK - a country which employs some 142,000 workers in the automotive sector - and produce as many as 9,000 engines per year. That in and of itself would account for the vast majority of the 10,000-plus cars Bentley made last year, but will also make Bentley an exporter of engines for the first time in its history.
Right there at the factory, Bentley will fit the engines into twelve-cylinder versions of the Continental GT, GTC and Flying Spur, and send some back to Germany for use in the Audi A8. Applications within the Volkswagen brand itself like the Phaeton and Touareg no longer use the W12 engine, but could conceivably use it again in the future - they'll just have to bring them in from England is all.