Bentley Bentayga Diesel
Bentley has lowered its first-ever diesel engine into its first-ever SUV. Sacrilege, or shrewd business decision?
DIESEL. It’s become a bit of a dirty word of late, hasn’t it? But that hasn’t stopped Bentley from launching its first-ever oil-burner in a near98-year history, boldly depositing it beneath the bonnet of its first-ever SUV, the Bentayga. The result? What the brand bills as the world’s “fastest and most powerful luxury diesel SUV”.
To be fair, the Crewe-based automaker has long harboured plans to offer a diesel engine in its Bentayga, developing the divisively styled SUV with this in mind from the outset, well before the Volkswagen Group’s dirty laundry was first aired. Bentley was, it says, simply waiting for the right engine to come along to complement the existing W12.
And what a special engine it is. The 4,0-litre V8 turbodiesel is shared with the Audi SQ7 – itself under consideration for South African introduction later this year – although Bentley has done some fettling to make this lump its own.
The British automaker has added specific engine and transmission calibration (including unique gear ratios), and as many as eight off-road modes, even if most of its customers won’t use a single one. The automaker furthermore completed its own thermal development and – as has long been a Bentley custom – not electronically limited its top speed, giving it a 20 km/h edge over the stifled 250 km/h Audi.
The VW Group subsidiary furthermore developed an individual “acoustic package” for the diesel derivative, virtually eliminating the sort of clatter and vibration traditionally associated with such units; thankfully without resorting to piping in fake noise. Indeed, from inside the masterfully insulated cabin, you’d be hard-pressed to tell you’re rollicking along in a diesel, even under full throttle.
Not that you’d often require full throttle. You see, the 320 kw eight-pot offers all of its twisting force from very low in the rev-range by employing a pair of twin-scroll turbochargers as well as an electric supercharger. The latter draws its urge from a 48-volt system (rather than being driven by the engine), working in the first third of the power curve to deliver boost at rock-bottom engine speeds.
The result is that the full 900 N.m – yes, the same figure offered by the 447 kw W12 variant – arrives as early as 1 000 r/min, essentially eradicating turbo lag and giving the first conventional turbocharger ample chance to come on song. Once the final blower adds its voice (and the electric compressor is disengaged), the engine is effectively bi-turbocharged, with torque tapering off only after 3 250 r/min.
As the driver, you’re never really aware of all of this underbonnet sorcery, despite the system’s intricate nature. Nail the throttle and off you go, revelling in the linear delivery of seemingly effortless oomph, which belies the fairly portly Bentayga’s 2 390 kg kerb weight and hustles it from standstill to 100 km/h in a mere 4,8 seconds (just 0,7 seconds slower than the W12).
Add permanent all-wheel drive, a slick eight-speed ZF transmission and pleasingly accurate steering to the mix, and you have point-and-squirt luxury motoring at its very finest. Sure, there’s no hiding the Bentayga’s obvious weight through the bends, but once the dial is twisted to sport, it corners remarkably flat and grips with more enthusiasm than something this hefty should.
Perhaps best of all, it doesn’t sacrifice its utterly superb ride quality in the process. That is, if you specify the Dynamic Ride system, an electric active rollcontrol technology that draws on the same lithium-ion-powered 48 V system to counteract lateral rolling forces when cornering, in addition to the standard multimode air-suspension system.
The diesel model also gains a handful of subtle, model-specific styling cues, including a black grille up front, unique “twinquad” tailpipes round back and understated “V8 Diesel” badging on the front doors. Other than that, it’d be easy to mistake it for the W12, both inside the sumptuously finished cabin and out.
If local pricing follows the trend set by other markets, the new diesel derivative could well be around 20% cheaper than the W12 when it launches in mid2017. And while you may miss out on that big ol’ petrol mill, you will gain vastly increased range (potentially more than 1 000 km in total) from the most efficient Bentley engine ever, making for a compelling luxury SUV with superb grand touring abilities and the same lofty levels of comfort offered by the rest of the range.
Thing is, there’s already a queue. In the first year of production, Bentley ended up building around 50% more units than it had planned, such is the demand for a vehicle that initially had many traditionalists squirming in their wingback chairs.
And the addition of a diesel model – again, likely furrowing those already deeply fissured brows, despite its absolutely effortless oomph and seemingly unparalleled levels of oil-burning refinement – surely means that line is about to become quite a bit longer still.