Cars have to get greener, all of them, even Bentley cars. That is no small feat. Among all cars, Bentley are maybe those who provide the most luxurious experience. To sit inside a Bentley, to feel the fabulous leather, the exquisite wood work, the thick yet incredibly soft carpeting, this is one’s of life great experience. Unfortunately not available to most of us. Even more unfortunate, this comes at a heavy environmental price with CO2 emissions that equal those of 4 Toyota Prius. This must change, and Bentley is conscious of it, the manufacturer announces it will launch a new and much more efficient engine next year.

It looks very much like the actual model, but this Bentley Continental is an all new car, only the engine and transmission are carried over with small modifications, most notably the ability to run on E85. So it’s still a 6.0-liter twin-turbocharged 12-cylinder under the hood, with a 6-speed automatic transmission. A make-over wouldn’t do, a totally new engine is needed, and this is what Bentley is promising. It’ll be a 4.0-liter V8, developed with the help of Audi (Bentley’s sister brand within the Volkswagen group), with I believe twin-turbocharging to provide the huge torque Bentley customers are used to.

My guess is that if you want to imagine what this new engine will be like, look under the hood of a BMW X6 M. The Bentley Continental should get something very similar, most likely with ZF’s 8-speed automatic transmission. Fuel consumption shall be improved by 40%.
We’ll see that next year.