Bentley Flying Spur, 2014
Bentley establishes a new luxury performance sedan benchmark with the launch of the new Flying Spur. With its unrivalled blend of effortless driveability, exquisite luxury and craftsmanship, sculpted design and state-of-the-art technology, the new Bentley Flying Spur takes the worldwide success of its iconic predecessor further. Bentley's most powerful four-door model ever makes its global debut at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show.
Bentley's styling team has developed an athletic design for the new Flying Spur that combines traditional Bentley styling cues with a sporting stance and contemporary details. Sharp feature lines complement muscular rear haunches, while LED day-time running lights, dipped headlights and taillights characterise the front and rear profiles. The interior designers have created a luxurious, spacious cabin that dresses advanced acoustic and electronic technologies in exquisite hand-crafted leather hides and wood veneers.
Driver and passengers alike interface with the car and the outside world through touch-screen infotainment, mobile connectivity including Wi-Fi, a Rear Seat Entertainment suite and a new hand-held Touch Screen Remote which allows rear-cabin occupants to control an extensive range of features from the comfort of their seat. An eight-channel, eight-speaker audio system with Balanced Mode Radiators provides high quality sound clarity, with the 1100W Naim® for Bentley premium system available as an option.
Powering the new Flying Spur is Bentley's renowned 6.0-litre, twin turbo W12 engine, coupled to a ZF eight-speed transmission. Developing 625 PS (616 bhp) and 800 Nm of torque, the new Flying Spur features more power than any other Bentley four-door in history. A 14 per cent improvement in the power-to-weight ratio over the outgoing model delivers a breath-taking 0-60 mph time of 4.3 seconds and a top-speed of 200 mph (322 km/h). In the modern Bentley tradition, power is delivered to the road via all-wheel drive with a 40:60 rear-biased torque split for a sure-footed, engaging drive in all road and weather conditions.
Bentley Chairman and Chief Executive, Dr Wolfgang Schreiber, comments: "Bentley's new Flying Spur is the ultimate luxury performance sedan. Our engineers have worked tirelessly to ensure that the Flying Spur is the perfect combination of power, comfort, refinement and hand-crafted quality. Fitted with the very latest technology, the new Flying Spur is equipped both for business and relaxation whilst remaining a car to enjoy from behind the wheel."
A SLEEK AND STRIKING EXTERIOR
The styling of the new Bentley Flying Spur establishes a new design character for Bentley's performance sedan. An elegant direction is reflected by a lower, wider appearance with sharp lines and gently curvaceous surfaces. A lower roof line, deeply sculpted panels, precise feature lines and a muscular rear haunch give the Flying Spur a more aggressive stance and a powerfully dynamic profile.
The front fenders feature a striking new wing vent complete with an elegant Bentley "B" motif. From here, an additional feature line forms a sharply defined edge running from the front wheel all the way to the rear bumper, underlining the shape's dynamic character.
At the front of the car, a more upright chrome grille sits between the pairs of jewel-like LED headlamps. Emphasising the lower, wider stance, the outer lamps are the larger of the two. Beneath the front grille, the lower intake is now full width with no vertical divisions, but instead with a chromed horizontal accent that completes the dramatic face of the new Flying Spur.
At the rear, a longer and lower boot lid lends a more swept appearance to the side profile. Horizontal single ellipse LED tail lamps combine with a new interpretation of the Bentley "Horse Shoe" feature line, now running the full width of the car and encapsulating a graceful concave section.
Beneath the elegant skin of the new Flying Spur, a wide range of materials is applied in an intelligent and efficient manner. Designed to improve overall body stiffness and refinement whilst meeting stringent crash performance targets and pedestrian protection legislation, the new body structure includes reinforcement to the B-posts, sills and front crossmembers together with deformable components in the floorpan for optimal load transfer. A deployable bonnet that includes both new reinforcement panels and deformation elements helps to improve pedestrian impact performance.
The bonnet and front fenders are constructed in aluminium, with the fenders shaped using the aerospace-industry superforming technique, employing compressed air to shape heated sheets of alloy into the required form at over 500°C. Exceptionally clean lines with sharp radii and lighter-weight components are the result, giving the new Flying Spur an unmistakeably Bentley front end with extremely taut shut lines.
The new door structures are completely redesigned with fewer individual parts for improved quality and refinement. An optimisation of the doors realised through efficient use of materials contributes to much improved door kinematics and feel. Meanwhile, further weight savings are achieved through the crafting of the bootlid in a polymer composite material that also integrates the main antennae for the car's electronic systems.
The exterior design, manufacturing processes and carefully optimised materials selections combine to provide a bodyshell that is not only muscular and clean, with minimal shutlines, but also one that performs exceptionally well on the road. With a torsional stiffness of 36,500 Nm/degree, a 4% increase over the previous generation Flying Spur, the new bodyshell provides an extremely rigid platform for the chassis components and a stable foundation for NVH reduction. The sleek shape also has outstanding aerodynamic properties for a large sedan, with an overall drag coefficient of just 0.29 and ensuing benefits to emissions performance.
Weight savings in the body structure and throughout the car mean that the new Flying Spur is 50 kg lighter than the first generation car, despite the additional refinement measures, enhanced technology specification and stronger structure.
A CONTEMPORARY CABIN OF HAND-CRAFTED MATERIALS
The sumptuous interior of the new Flying Spur includes 600 new parts, with only the sun visors, grab handles, armrests and some of the front console and controls carried over from the previous generation. Class-leading entertainment and information technologies are married with traditional hand-crafted materials and stunning contemporary design to create the ultimate high-luxury sedan cabin.
Available in both four- and five-seat configurations, the new Flying Spur features redesigned front and rear seats trimmed in natural premium-quality leather. The new seats use a softer yet more durable hide unique to Bentley and available in twelve different colours.
Careful use of different foam specifications and densities creates seats that are both supremely comfortable and supportive, with 14-way adjustment including memory and lumbar functions. Every occupant is offered seat heating as well as seat ventilation, while additional stowage sections are incorporated to the rear of the front seats.
For the four-seat variant, the centre console sweeps from the front to the rear cabin and introduces an additional storage area together with a beautifully crafted stowage case, trimmed in veneer to match the car.
The interior designers, together with the craftsmen and women of Bentley's renowned woodshop, have applied the finest wood veneers to finish the cabin of the new Flying Spur. Utilising almost ten square metres of sustainably sourced natural wood per car, the Bentley Flying Spur features book-matched and mirror-polished veneer to the fascia panels, consoles, waistrails and picnic tables. To enhance the "wrap-around" feel of the forward cabin, the veneer of the dashboard meets that of the doors in a perfectly aligned curve, giving the impression of an unbroken arc of wood around the interior. Crafted entirely by hand, cured for 72 hours and clear-lacquered to enhance the natural beauty of the wood, a range of seven sophisticated veneers is available (two as standard - burr walnut or dark fiddleback eucalyptus).
To complete the luxurious and opulent nature of the cabin, the roof lining and pillars are also trimmed in natural leather. Layers of supple foam are applied to all tactile surfaces beneath the hide, harmonising the touch and feel of all areas of the cabin. Electrically-operated rear side blinds, fitted as standard, permit privacy for rear-seat passengers if desired. Customers may also specify an optional glass sunroof at no additional cost. Behind the central rear armrest, a nine-litre bottle cooler can be specified to keep drinks perfectly chilled. The interior designers also focused on improving interior stowage around the cabin, whilst including new electronic technologies discretely throughout the interior.
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