New Bentley Mulsanne

Built to replace the soon-to-be discontinued Arnage, the Mulsanne is Bentley's new flagship model that has been designed and engineered at Crewe from the ground-up. We already got a taste of the Mulsanne about a month ago at the Pebble Beach Concours D'Elegance in California, but now Bentley has released further details on the limousine that made its European premiere in Frankfurt.

On the outside, the Mulsanne is less gaudy than the Rolls Royce Phantom but far more interesting than Daimler's S-Class-lookalike, the Maybach 57/62, which are the car's closest rivals. Highlights include the bold front design with the unusual quad headlamp arrangement and the huge front grille that echo the styling of the Bentley S-Type of the 1950s, the swooping rear end and muscular shoulder lines at the back along with the massive 20-inch or optionally, 21-inch alloy wheels.

Bentley's New $300,000 Sedan

A lot of people may be resentful of Wall Street bonuses, but Bentley executives are not among them. Bentley Motors Inc. gave a preview of its upcoming Mulsanne luxury sedan in New York Oct. 22. The car, which will cost close to $300,000, has an eight-cylinder engine which, despite using an old-fashioned design, generates more than 500 horsepower.

Named after a long, fast straightaway at the Le Mans racing track in France, the Mulsanne is part of the company's plan to re-establish itself as a top-tier maker of exclusive luxury cars -- sales have been drastically down. The new model will compete with a handful of other rarefied sedans already on the market, including the Maybach 57 and Rolls-Royce Phantom. Bentley, a British unit of German carmaker Volkswagen AG, has not named an exact price for the new car, which will go on sale in the U.S. a year from now. But since the Rolls-Royce Phantom, built by BMW AG, and Maybach 57, part of the Daimler AG family, both cost closer to $400,000, the less-costly Mulsanne will take advantage of a largely untapped sweet spot in luxury-car pricing.

While there certainly are people who can afford the Mulsanne, its release into a struggling economy may be a case of bad timing. Bentley says it expects worldwide sales of its current cars, priced mostly between $150,000 and $200,000, to total about 4,500 vehicles for 2009, down from 10,040 in 2007 and 7,600 in 2008. In a more acute case of poor timing, the Mulsanne refused to start during the preview and had to be manually pushed off its truck and into the display gallery (see video).

2009 New York: Bentley Continental Supersports

$267,000 – that’s how much you’ll have to cash out to own the fastest, most powerful Bentley ever produced – otherwise known as the Bentley Continental Supersports. You can place your order starting October 2009.

Power comes from a 6.0L W12 twin-turbocharged engine making 621-hp and a maximum torque of 590 lb-ft. The engine is capable of running on gasoline and E85 biofuel or any combination of the two. Keep in mind that the first couple hundred units headed to the U.S. will be gas only.

0 to 62 mph for the Bentley Continental Supersports comes in 3.9 seconds with a top speed of 204 mph.

2010 Bentley Arnage

2010 Bentley Arnage

2010 Bentley Continental Supersport

$267,000 - that’s how much you’ll have to cash out to own the fastest, most powerful Bentley ever produced - otherwise known as the Bentley Continental Supersports. You can place your order starting October 2009.

Power comes from a 6.0L W12 twin-turbocharged engine making 621-hp and a maximum torque of 590 lb-ft. The engine is capable of running on gasoline and E85 biofuel or any combination of the two. Keep in mind that the first couple hundred units headed to the U.S. will be gas only.

2010 Bentley Arnage

Autocar reports that the Bentley Arnage will be replaced with a new model for the 2010 model year. Amid speculation that the Veyron-engined Arnage built recently and described by Bentley as a “prototype” is an indication of the next-generation Arnage’s powerplant – almost 1000 hp – the word is that the 2010 Arnage will have an aluminum spaceframe chassis produced by Audi, an aluminum body, and possibly a hybrid version of the current 6.75 liter V-8 using the transmission developed for the Audi Q7
hybrid or the hybrid transmission currently under development for the next Audi Quattro.

Autocar cites Audi’s chief of engineering, Michael Dick, as a source for the spaceframe information. Dick has recently said that Audi’s spaceframe would be the basis for all new Bentleys, saving about 330 lbs. in weight. Bentley has also disclosed that it will display a concept model which emphasizes “green” thinking at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show. It is also expected that there may be major modifications made to the Bentley factory, both to accommodate the next Arnage and to accommodate production of other future Bentley models which will be based on the same spaceframe.

Despite the recent appearance of a Veyron-engined prototype version of the current Arnage, Bentley’s boss, Franz-Joseph Paefgen, has said that the company intends to keep the 6.75 liter powerplant used in the current model, but retune it to meet 2009 European Union emissions standards. That will be quite a feat for an engine that was first introduced fifty years ago. Even more challenging will be the next set of emissions standards. But, the company is currently working, according to Paefgen, on meeting the 2013-15 EU emissions standards with the 6.75 liter engine. “All our engineers want to keep the engine alive,” he said. Perhaps the W16 from the Veyron is merely a fall-back plan.

Introducing a model smaller than the current Bentleys, however, seems to be a plan that’s been rejected. Though Bentley anticipates that it may need to improve fuel efficiency by 20%, it does not intend to downsize the cars. “We may need to shed weight, but we still need to produce cars of a Bentley size,” according to Paefgen.

2010 Bentley Azure T

Based on Azure model, the Bentley Azure T offers a wide palette of discrete properties of the body, which pronounce even more the power and announce some potential in sport performance. Through the key elements that describe it, our attention is drown by the 20 inches aroid rims that are made from two pieces and 5 spokes also the air scoops “Le Mans” placed on the front wings.

Other standard characteristic from Azure are available such as standard option like the radiator grid, the lower grid painted in dark colors, the tank cover “Jewel” and side mirrors in the same color as the body.
Just like Bentley Brooklands, Azure T approaches the legendary “B with wings”. For the concept of the car we have to thank the artist F. Gordon Crosby, this emblem was mounted for the first time on the Bentley cars on the 8 liters engine in 1930.

With the exterior lines that reveal visual elements just like the Bentley Mk.6 from 1946, Azure was welcome with enthusiasm in 2005 in Los Angeles. Now with the preparing for the launch of Azure T in Los Angeles, Raul Pires, the director of the design department of the body from Bentley Motors a notice:
” The proportions of Azure have offer us a base idea to create the new Azure T. The bold wings on the rear and her “top model” body have inspired our designers to reinterpret the convertible Bentley.

Exceptional lines of the rims go together with the trunk line that sows us that this one is smaller and younger, but makes room to a round dash board and is in a hors shoe form. This elegant form is a smile for the first Bentley built at Crewe, The Mk 6 model, and the main effect is a discreet illusion of the power and performance that lies in the body of Azure T.

The subtlest chrome elements pronounce the fluid lines of Bentley Azure T, and also include the frame of the lights, the exhaust end and the fine vanillin’s that are over the car.

Bentley invest time and effort to transform the hood of Bentley Azure T a hood that has it looks but it is also functional. It’s made from 3 layers of calico, the hood it is hydraulic opened, with a simple touch of a button. The roof, when is acted, elegant rearrange itself in 25 seconds also with a simple touch of a button. Being stored in a independent zone, the roof dos not change the space of the trunk, trunk that is design to hold 2 equipment of golf and a hand bag.