Releasing few but the vaguest of details, car manufacturer Bentley Motors is testing the marketplace waters with their latest model, the Flying Spur. With Bentley's next info-update set for Feb. 20, car buyers ready to shell out the big bucks for their next super-luxury automobile which has, for now, only a new music video teaser trailer and a Cezanne-esque circumspect sketch to go by.
Eagle-eyed Graham Kozak of Autoweek has already caught in the ninety-minute teaser trailer released Monday with these facts:
> The extant model of the Spur - the Continental Flying Spur - was categorized as such by the car company with the designation "Continental" qualifying (by deduction of the two-door Bentley's Continental GT) its two-door status. Hence, car buyers might expect the new (non-Continental) Flying Spur to be a four-door.
> One comparison to the Continental GT model is the Flying Spur's similar headlights (which, possibly revealingly, are prominently featured in the said video teaser).
Though Bentley is remaining obtusely tight-lipped on their new model, sybaritic car connoisseurs will probably have an opportunity to see the vehicle in toto at the upcoming Geneva Motor Show (this March).
Considering Bentley's cachet, the Flying Spur - which will be released in 2014 - should be a marked update to its predecessor whose attributes include:
- 12-cylinder engine
- 552 brake horsepower
- 0-60 in 5.4 seconds
- Starting price of $206,600
With this typical Bentley starting price in the house-buying range, it's of some curiosity the percentage of Volkswagen DNA in the Continental. Bentley is, after all, a VW subsidiary.
Though Bentley product manager Ken Scott was "quick to point out" to Car & Driver last May that the "direct component carry-over is only 25 percent," Car & Driver disclosed the Continental Flying Spur's "6.0-liter W-12 engine design, four-wheel-drive system, and basic suspension architecture are all from the VW Phaeton."
Regardless of their cars being imbued with VW DNA or not, Bentley told GT Spirit that their "new luxury performance sedan will redefine the standards for this luxury segment."
The Flying Spur name harkens back to Bentley's R-type Continental that hit pavement back in 1952. The four-door Continental Flying Spur zoomed into the market five years later.
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