Volkswagen group owned luxury car maker Bentley, according to reports, has set its sight on manufacturing a model that is likely to be placed below the Continental GT. The British car maker is set to launch a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) in 2015 and will follow the same with the manufacturing of the new two-seater.
As per a report by Top Gear, Wolfgang Durheimer, the incoming chief at Bentley, will return after a two-year hiatus and claimed that this car would be the firm’s fifth product line after Continental GT, Flying Spur, Mulsanne and the SUV.
Currently, nothing is clear in the firm’s mind regarding the shape of the fifth model but Durheimer spoke about two possibilities. Either the new Bentley would come between Continental GT and Mulsanne or it could well be place below the lowest variant of Continental GT.
Several speculations have surfaced, debating about how low the new Bentley model will be price and would it come down to the level of a Jaguar F-Type, which costs half as much as a Continental GT. Durheimer, clarifying straight away, said that something like this will not happen. “There will never be a cheap Bentley, this is for sure. A Bentley […] will never be a mass market car; it will never be approachable for everybody. It needs to be a solid statement in terms of luxury and performance,” he told Top Gear.
Industry experts believe that this car could rival a model like Mercedes-Benz AMG GT. Another interesting piece of interesting information that came out of this was the fact that the new Bentley is going to be offered with a hybrid option. In fact, Durheimer has claimed that all future models manufactured by Bentley will boast of a hybrid variant. The new seater is likely to be fitted with a powertrain that is lower than V8 and W12 units. Experts feel that the option of a V6 petrol hybrid could be on the cards.
