maserati alfieri
Revealed at Geneva 2014.
Production still a few years away.
mercedes-amg gt
More than a mere SLS Lite. The
in the crosshairsWhat will the EXP 10 Speed 6 be up against? GT is up there with the very best.
SPORTY BENTLEY
He says they have a year to decide if this is
the right thing for an extra model line—not a
replacement for any existing Bentley. That tim-
ing, he explains, is so that “when the Bentayga
SUV is executed, the engineers can jump to the
next product.” The EXP 10 bit of the name, by the
way, means it’s an experimental car, following the
concept version of the Bentayga—the EXP 9.
Dürheimer is keen to emphasize that if it be-
came real, it wouldn’t be a Porsche 911 rival: “It
will be smaller than the Continental GT but not
cheaper.” Several months ago, he’d told me the
sports-car and convertible segment was shrink-
ing. “Yes,” he says now, “it is a declining market at
present. If we followed the market, we would do a
second SUV.” But it’s pretty obvious he’s looking
for an excuse not to follow the market. And the
EXP 10 could well be it.
Enough of the theory and logic. Let’s get up
close. See the EXP 10 alongside a Continental
GT, and it’s obviously a much lower, smaller car,
not just a re-skin. Dürheimer says it would use a
new structure. Would it be lightweight? “I’ll sleep
on that.” He adds a Bentley has to feel strong,
solid. Lightness isn’t in its DNA.
But according to designer Sangyup Lee: “Our
heritage is weight, but it’s also torque and luxury.
Now we want to develop a sports car against the
AMG GT and the Aston Martin Vantage. It would
still be the most luxurious car among them. But
we want kids to have a poster of a Bentley on their
walls. If you don’t love this at first sight, it hasn’t
worked. The Bentley brand design has been very
safe. Now we want to push forward, both in form
language and in detail execution.”
Of course, Bentley tried before to push
forward and probe its design limits. It didn’t end
well. The EXP 9 , the concept for the Bentayga,
had a front-end design that soured the milk. A
lesson has been learned: The Bentayga has been
re-nosed for production. (The EXP 9 had been
done before Lee took over the advanced design
leadership. He was at a Volkswagen studio in
California at the time, and before that had done
the Camaro at Chevrolet.) Besides, a sports car
needs a different face from an SUV. This is it.
The EXP 10 ’s grille is shallower than on any
production Bentley so far. But more striking still
are the headlamps. Having four round eyes is a
Bentley fixture, Lee points out, but it’s obvious
they pushed the boundaries here, and poured a
lot of love into the details. He makes me crouch
down in front of the car as if in supplication, and
‘WE WANT KIDS TO HAVE A POSTER
OF A BENTLEY ON THEIR WALLS. WE
WANT TO PUSH FORWARD, BOTH IN
FORM LANGUAGE AND IN DETAILS’
82 TOP GEAR PHILIPPINES WWW.topgear.com.ph