The morning briefing, delivered from the confines of our warm hotel, is brief. It’s a decent day for lake and land-based testing, with a fresh dusting of snow giving relatively good traction. Please remember to keep the fabric covers draped over the interior, with the bonnet and doors left firmly closed, to frustrate the spy photographers. Lights on for the snow spray, which will be considerable, given a Bentayga Speed is leading our convoy. Oh, and keep an eye out for the black bin bags.
The what? Because Autocar is piggybacking this winter-testing excursion only as a passenger, I keep shtum. Nigel Tew, Bentley’s long-serving director of whole vehicle engineering, will later explain that locals tie bin bags to roadside poles where reindeer have been seen crossing. Despite the copious snow and ice in northern Sweden, people don’t hang about on the larger roads. It follows that, with the mass of the animal conveniently concentrated at windscreen height, any car – and, realistically, its occupants – will feel it if metal and mammal collide.
This metal is precious, too. It’s the new four-door version of the Bentley Continental, the crucial successor to the Flying Spur, and one of 12 prototypes currently ‘in territory’ for fine-tuning before the wraps officially come off later this year. Three weeks ago, it was hot-weather testing in South Africa, but it has since returned to Crewe for a quick software update and preparation for Sweden, the industry venue of choice when engineering teams need to cover everything from traction control tuning to fluid viscosity at -30deg C. I’m told New Zealand is another option if more winter testing is required out of the European season, but only for those manufacturers with the deepest pockets, because the cost of air-freighting the cars 11,500 miles across the world is by all accounts unholy.
Bentley’s engineering teams – separated for chassis, electronics, powertrain and so on – typically spend a week at a time in Arvidsjaur, the small town that has grown around car industry since Opel first tested here in 1967 and, thanks to Bosch and Mercedes, is the birthplace of electronic stability control. “For the chassis, we’re looking about how the wheel arches fill with snow, how the steering and dampers work at low temperatures,” says Florian Sprenger, formerly of Porsche but now Bentley’s head of chassis engineering and a bit of hand in these ‘low-mu’ conditions.
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The pics give a good
Bentley will still want to
Bentley will still want to maintain a gap between this and the Mulsanne, I imagine the next Mulsanne will be more "formal" looking to differentiate it
Julianne is a good question....
...for, as we know the New Flying Spur is thanks to Porsche MSB bones,. Yet, as I recall, the new/replacement for the Mulsanne will not use the platform of its forbearer. Will it too use Porsche DNA? If so, can the MSB flexible enough to stretch that much to fill those shoes? Or will they, like Rolls Royce, built an all new architecture for the Mulsanne replacement to ride on?
Awful autocorrect....
...the heading should say: "Mulsanne is a good question..."
Tough For Autocar to Survive
Whilst I fully understand the need for Bentley to winter test, its sad that Autocar is reduced to having to go on 'ride-alongs' and headline with a picture of a Bentley Continental Flying Spur going sideways on opposite lock across a frozen lake in rural Sweden! Does anyone on this forum know personally of any current (or past) Bentley owner that has enjoyed such an adventure in their Bentley?
225mph? Is that a typo...!
225mph? Is that a typo...!
Based on how excellent the Conti Gt is, this car will surely be fantastic.