Gavin Green, Mark Walton and Sam Smith
THE FIRST PART I TOUCHED inside the stately cabin of the new Bentley Continental GT was the Porsche-sourced electric steering adjuster. Does this matter when the rest of the cockpit is so remorselessly British and Bentley, not least 10 square metres of finely varnished wood? No.
Should we worry about a platform co-developed with Porsche for the Panamera? Not when it rides with such suppleness and can lift its heels with such alacrity. Or what about that Porsche PDK dual-clutch gearbox? It’s more zestful and sharper-of-shift than the old ZF auto and can still play set-and-forget wafting in Comfort mode. And when the Porsche V8 and hybrid versions hit the market should we worry that this is the thin edge of the wedge and there’ll be a TDI front-drive BlueMotion Bentley before we can say Vorsprung durch Technik? No, and no again. The V8 will probably be the pick, just as the old Audi-sourced V8 was the best engine for the previous Conti GT.
So, the new Continental GT may not be a Bentley Bentley. But it is a better Bentley. Intelligent VW Group platform sharing has made for a superior car.
A month or so before I drove the Continental GT, I interviewed Lamborghini boss Stefano Domenicali, just after the unveiling of the Urus. This new SUV uses similar underpinnings to the Audi Q7. It also uses a Porsche V8, just as Bentley will. Does it matter that a Lamborghini is powered by a Porsche-VW Group engine? It’s certainly disappointing, yet Domenicali assures me the turbo V8 is better suited to an SUV than a V10 or V12.
Elsewhere on the Urus we find an interior that feels rather Audi, and Golf electric window switches. Its exterior is Lambo-lite, wedge shaped but too restrained, Sant’Agata style reinterpreted by sensible Germans. Naturally, the Urus will sell well. It will appeal to the many who want a big fast all-purpose hatch, not the few who want a crazy two-seat motoring missile.
Now, these SUV Porsches, Bentleys, Maseratis, Alfas, Lamborghinis etc are all motoring mules – beasts of burden that cross thoroughbred sportsters with donkey-like SUVs. But they have just enough of their makers’ genes to convince the gullible and assuage the faithful; and they swell profits sufficiently to justify any reputational chinks. Try telling Porsche it screwed up with the Cayenne and Macan when they now represent 62 per cent of all sales, and we still love the 911 just as much as ever.
Our final stopover on our tour of new Volkswagen Group cars and their platform-sharing proclivities sees us journey to Skoda to drive the Karoq, successor to the Yeti. Skoda has done well with VW. The Czech maker has dragged itself out of the gutter and into the garages of the middle classes. The good Skodas – Octavia, Superb, Yeti – may have VW legs and lungs but they have Czech hearts. They also have more spacious cabins, and a better ride than equivalent VWs – and just about any other car.
The Yeti was my favourite. It had a big glasshouse, low shoulders – so distinctive compared with most slab-sided SUVs – and a real felicity of design, the work of Thomas Ingenlath before he left to make Volvos stylish. Its light weight also meant it drove like a hatch not a demi-truck.
The Yeti looked like nothing else. The Karoq looks like every other VW or Seat SUV. It’s actually a good car, one of the best small SUVs. It just isn’t a stand-alone Skoda – and when Skodas are just mildly fettled VWs, that’s badge engineering. And badge engineering is industrial vandalism, where brands are diminished and traduced, for short-term sales opportunism.
Badge engineering helped kill British Leyland and was a reason General Motors went bankrupt. ‘All American’ Chevrolets were frequently just crummy little Korean Daewoos. Holdens could be Pontiacs. A Chevy SUV became a Saab.
Fiat ruined Lancia when it thought it was fine to use this once-distinguished name plate on lardy Chryslers. Bentley’s reputation was trashed when its cars were re-badged RollsRoyces. This practice ended, paradoxically, when Volkswagen took control.
Mind you, rebranding someone else’s car will not do Seat’s reputation any harm. It started as a maker of badge-engineered Fiats. Making rebadged Volkswagens may be seen as progress.