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Bentley W12 engine production will officially end in April 2024

We knew the Bentley W12 engine had an expiration date before, but it’s going to come up even quicker than expected. Revealed today, Bentley says the last W12 engine it produces will be in April 2024. ThatÂ’s only one year and a couple of months away! Previously, Bentley made it clear that it would only sell PHEVs and EVs by 2026, implying the W12 was done for. It wonÂ’t last long enough to bump into that 2026 limit now that the 2024 production end is set. By the time its end date rolls around, Bentley will have made over 105,000 W12 engines since the 6.0-liter twin-turbocharged unit was introduced for 2003. Each of those engines was hand-built by a team of craftspeople — Bentley says each engine takes approximately 6.5 hours to complete. Which Bentley models are going to be made available with these final W12s, you ask? The real celebration for Bentley is happening with the Batur, a small run of Mulliner coach-built coupes based on the Continental GT. Final validation just wrapped up for the Batur version of the W12, and itÂ’s the most powerful yet at 740 horsepower and 737 pound-feet of torque. Versus the W12 found in other Bentley models, the Batur features reworked intake, exhaust and cooling systems along with a revised engine calibration. Unfortunately, all 18 Baturs (pic below) are already spoken for. If you still want a W12, Bentley says it has limited order slots left for the Continental GT Speed, Bentayga Speed and Flying Spur Speed. Additionally, Bentley will allow you to spec it in either the Continental GT Mulliner or Flying Spur Mulliner. No other new Bentley orders will be W12-compatible between now and production completion. The company warns that there are only a limited number of build slots left, so anyone still on the fence should act quickly if they want the W12.  Over the years, Bentley says the W12 has seen a 37% increase in power, 54% increase in torque and 25% reduction in emissions. The biggest changes came in 2015 when Bentley redesigned the engine “from the sump up” for the launch of the Bentayga SUV. As of today, there are 30 people involved in the engine assembly process. Bentley says it aims to retrain and redeploy all 30 into different positions once W12 production ceases Related video: 2024 Maserati GranTurismo walkaround

Ferdinand Piech (1937-2019): The man who made VW global

Towering among his peers, a giant of the auto industry died Sunday night in Rosenheim/Upper Bavaria, Germany. Ferdinand Piech, a grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, who conceived the original Volkswagen in the 1930s, was the most polarizing automotive executive of our times. And one who brought automotive technology further than anyone else. Ferdinand Porsche had a son, Ferdinand (called "Ferry"), and a daughter, Louise, who married the Viennese lawyer Anton Piech. They gave birth to Ferdinand Piech, and his proximity to two Alfa Romeo sports cars — Porsche had done some work for the Italians — and the "Berlin-Rome-Berlin" race car, developed by Porsche himself, gave birth to Piech's interest in cars. After his teachers in Salzburg told his mother he was "too stupid" to attend school there, Piech, who was open about his dyslexia, was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland. He subsequently moved on to Porsche, where he fixed issues with the 904 race car and did major work on the 911. But his greatest project was the Le Mans-winning 917 race car, developed at breathtaking financial cost. It annihilated the competition, but the family had had enough: Amid growing tension among the four cousins working at Porsche and Piech's uncle Ferry, the family decided to pull every family member, except for Ferry, out of their management positions. Piech started his own consultancy business, where he designed the famous five-cylinder diesel for Mercedes-Benz, but quickly moved on to Audi, first as an engineer and then as CEO, where he set out to transform the dull brand into a technology leader. Piech killed the Wankel engine and hammered out a number of ambitious and sophisticated technologies. Among them: The five-cylinder gasoline engine; Quattro all-wheel drive and Audi's fantastic rally successes; and turbocharging, developed with Fritz Indra, whom Piech recruited from Alpina. The Audi 100/200/5000 became the world's fastest production sedan, thanks to their superior aerodynamics. Piech also launched zinc-coated bodies for longevity — and gave diesel technology a decisive boost with the advent of the fast and ultra-efficient TDI engines. Less known: Piech also decided to put larger gas tanks into cars. Customers loved it. Piech's first-generation Audi V8 was met with derision by competitors; it was too obviously based on the 200/5000.

New Bentley boss nixes any new sports cars in its money-losing lineup

Adrian Hallmark took over the helm at Bentley on February 1 this year. Volkswagen poached him from Jaguar, where he headed the brand's global strategy. Or perhaps we should say re-poached him, since Hallmark served as Bentley's board member in charge of sales and marketing from 1999 to 2005, and helped guide the original Continental GT to market. He's now responsible getting Bentley in better shape financially and sales-wise, and positioning it for growth. Among the products necessary to do that, Hallmark recently told Autocar that flashy coupes won't cut it. "I'll tell you what we won't be building," he said, "and that's sports cars." That means we can forget about the gorgeous EXP 10 Speed 6 coupe that had a rumored place in the lineup after a sub-Bentayga CUV, and the EXP 12 Speed 6e battery-electric convertible. Hallmark cited a few issues with the segment, the first being that the segment hasn't yet recovered from the recession, and the buyer demographic that's left goes up in age every year, clearly a losing game. The kinds of younger buyers who would buy Bentleys, athletes and entertainers, are deterred from the purchase by contractual limitations like injury clauses or aversion to paparazzi photos. As well, in China, wealthy buyers get SUVs or limousines, but Hallmark believes Bentley hasn't adopted the the proper strategy there to take advantage. This is far more than about sports cars for Bentley, though; a recent article in German newspaper Handelsblatt outlined a number of situations the carmaker needs to rectify, including the finding that Bentley's "losing money hand over fist instead of racking up the hefty margins more typical of the class." A German study claimed that whereas Ferrari makes around $80,000 on every car it sells, and Porsche makes a little more than $19,000 on each car (last year it was a little more than $17,000) Bentley loses a little more than $19,000 on each unit. The English manufacturer has posted an operating loss of roughly $92 million through the first six months of 2018, the latest figures in a decline that began in 2014. That financial timeline, however, coincides with Bentley's $1.1B investment in new technologies, which the carmaker cites as the reason for profitability woes.