It’s still a Bentley but now a diesel
Not only is Brit luxury manufacturer Bentley building an SUV, but now it’s building a diesel version too, as Damien O’Carroll explains.
There was a time – not all that long ago, either – that even the merest suggestion of installing a diesel engine into a Bentley would have been greeted with angry harrumphs spluttered indignantly from under stiff upper lips, the jangle of rattled tea cups and a theatrically fainting dowager or two.
The thought of such a thing! Surely nothing as refined and elegant as a Bentley would ever be propelled by something so crass. So vulgar. So… working class!
Well, hang on to your pipe your lordship, because even building an SUV was something that would have seemed most un-Bentley a while back, and they have done that rather convincingly well with the Bentayga. And now it is time for that very vehicle to become the first Bentley in the company’s 98-year history to get a diesel engine.
But what a diesel engine it is – developed for use in the Bentley and the Audi SQ7, the all-new and totally belligerent 4.0-litre diesel V8 packs three turbos, 320kW of power and a colossal 900Nm of torque.
That’s right; you DID read that correctly – the Bentley diesel has three turbos and one of them is rather different from anything you will have seen on a production car before.
That is because the first ‘‘turbo’’ in the SQ7’s sequential set up is an electrically powered one that eschews the traditional exhaust gas-propelled method of spooling it up in favour of an electric motor that is powered by the Bentley’s equally innovative 48-volt electrical sub system that handles all the high-voltage heavy lifting required by the turbo and the active roll stabilisation system that first debuted in the W12-powered Bentayga.
With this 48-volt power boost behind it, the electric turbo can spool up to an incredible 75,000rpm in 0.3 of a second, eliminating traditional turbo lag and making the engine’s full 900Nm available from under 1000rpm.
The second turbo in the lineup is referred to by Bentley as the ‘‘active’’ turbo and is constantly spinning. This takes over things after the electric turbo has moved things off the line and by 2200rpm the third turbo (or the ‘‘passive’’ turbo) has woken up and spun into life to provide additional power further up in the rev range.
So what does all this mean to your average distinguished gentleman peer of the realm behind the wheel and his good lady next to him? Brutal acceleration, almost complete silence and utter composure at all times.
The only wilting of the stiff upper lip would come from the surprise of the relentlessness of the accelerative power of the Bentayga diesel as, like the Audi SQ7, it simply belts off the line, yet in a startlingly refined and civilised manner.
Okay, so although the Bentayga is FAR more likely to be bought by a Premier League footballer than a lord, the air of supreme luxury and effortless performance is still well intact in the oil-burning Bentayga.
But should a diesel-powered Bentayga be all that shocking? After all, before Rolls-Royce bought a struggling Bentley in 1931 and made it all about luxury (but not too much luxury), the company was pretty much all about speed, speed and more speed. And a contentious engine choice actually made the marque the legend it is today.
How so? Well, the most celebrated and powerful Bentley of that early era is the 4.5-litre Blower Bentley, a car that racing driver and one of the original ‘‘Bentley Boys’’, Sir Henry ‘‘Tim’’ Birkin, helped by a Bentley mechanic, produced on his own, as founder W.O. Bentley was an avowed fan of displacement over forcedinduction.
Making an engine bigger was the way to better power in Mr Bentley’s book, but slapping something as uncouth and crass as a supercharger on (like Jerry was doing at Mercedes-Benz at the time) was simply not on.
In fact Walter Owen once proclaimed that ‘‘to supercharge a Bentley engine was to pervert its design and corrupt its performance’’.
He was technically correct, however, as Birkin rushed the Blower into production and it was notoriously unreliable. But when it was flying, it was thoroughly magnificent and, along with the Bentley Boy’s exploits, cemented the British marque’s legend.
But just put things into perspective, a Blower Bentley could charge to 100kmh in eight seconds (which was ferociously fast in 1929) and had a top speed of more than 160kmh.
The new Bentayga diesel hits 100kmh in 4.6 seconds and tops out at 270kmh. I’ll just let that sink in.
Yes, comparing cars that existed as new entities 87 years apart is largely a pointless exercise, and, yes, if given the choice between driving the two I would grab the Blower in half a heartbeat.
The point is, perceptions come about over time and eventually it comes time to shatter those perception and try something new. Bentley, under Volkswagen’s ownership has been doing that for a while now and making as SUV was part of that. As is putting a diesel in it.
Will we see the diesel engine in other Bentleys? They aren’t saying. Would it work? Given that the engine is fantastically powerful, effortless and almost entirely silent (even at idle there is hardly even a hint of diesel rattle) then it would certainly be in keeping.
A disgruntled Ettore Bugatti once said the Blower Bentley was the fastest truck in the world. I think the Bentayga Diesel can now claim that particular crown. Even though it was meant with disdain, it is still nicely appropriate.