World Cars: Bentley Concepts

Showing posts with label Bentley Concepts. Show all posts

Friday, February 11, 2011

Bentley Opens its Crewe Headquarters to the Public with New Design Exhibition

If you're a petrol head and live in or are considering a trip to England, you may want to make plans to visit Bentley's headquarters in Crewe and check out a new design exhibition called "An Unbroken Line", which offers a rare glimpse inside the company's usually secret studios.

The exhibition follows the development of a Bentley from the first sketch right through to the final product, and includes drawings from the prototype phase of models such as the new Continental GT that are being shown to the public for the first time ever.

Furthermore, the exhibition also captures key moments of the company’s lineage with signature characteristics that define a Bentley to this day such as the positioning of the headlights, the use of inverted needles on the dashboard and the pronounced ‘powerlines’ that sweep down the flanks of the car.

Bentley Silver Wings Design Study for a Bugatti Veyron Rival

At the 1999 Geneva Motorshow, Volkswagen Group-owned British carmaker Bentley showed a W16 powered supercar concept called the Hunaudières. It was a sleek, cab-forward design finished in British Racing Green and with more chrome than Ludacris' Escalade.

Like so many concept cars, the Hunaudières never made it past being a one-off and Bentley consigned itself once more to making cars for wealthy Brits and Paris Hilton.

Now, two industrial design students from China's Tainjin Academy of Fine Arts, Shawn Wood and Guohua Cheng, have resurrected the Hunaudières in the form of a design study called the Bentley Silver [Filver in one pic, but we guess that was a mistake] Wings.

Fantasia: Bugatti EB1.2 TSI and Bentley Continental Super Mini

While we sincerely hope that no other supercar maker will ever follow in the degrading footsteps of Aston Martin and it's luxed-up Toyota iQ, the Cygnet, we have no problem whatsoever with photoshop artists attempting to imagine the impossible.

In this case a pair of Bugatti and Bentley superminis, both of which would, in theory, be based on the VW Group's Polo, Ibiza or Fabia hatchbacks. The two designs were created by Autoblog.nl reader Jasper van der Heiden. Check them out after the jump.

Is Bentley Considering a Shooting Brake Model?

Car and Driver had a chance to sit down with VW board member Stuart McCullough. In regards to future Bentley models, he said, "We have an idea in the back of our minds that we may yet bring to market."

Of course, this immediately led to whisperings and theories of a possible Continental Shooting Brake like Carozzeria Touring Superleggera's Flying Star (see here) that was revealed at this year's edition of the Geneva Motor Show.

Xenatec Shows Off its "Dream Cars": Bentley SUV, BMW 6-Series Sedan and More

Now that their limited production Maybach 57S Coupe (see here) has made the rounds, here are some of the other proposals from Xenatec. Since the company's specialty is chassis modification (and the necessary body work thereafter), they've got some ideas for a lengthened (and shortened) "dream cars".

Have a look at the gallery below and see what tickles your fancy. The SUV limos are a bit much, but the rag-top conversions don't look too bad (especially the CLS and 300).

Bentley Commissions RCA Students to Design Futuristic Concepts

In a special partnership with London's famous Royal College of Art (RCA), Bentley organized a design competition called "Bentleys of the Future" in which eighteen Vehicle Design Course Masters students took part developing a range of futuristic concept proposals over the last few months.

Now the competition has entered the second phase with four of the participating RCA students shortlisted to refine their designs with Bentley's Head of Exterior Design Raul Pires and his colleagues.

The four finalists in the "Bentleys of the Future" competition are Bora Kim, David Seesing, Marten Wallgren and Mikka Heikkinen.

Bora Kim (26) from South Korea, created a Bentley which allows owners of the vehicle to easily select their preferred engine for any type of journey while Sweden's Marten Wallgren (27) came up with a futuristic version of the Bentley Continental GT.

David Seesing (26) from Germany says his proposals combines "a radical design with impressive aerodynamics" whilst Finland's Mikka Heikkinen (26) created a high-performance Bentley.

The winner and runner-up of the competition will both be invited to join the British automaker in Crewe for a six month secondment in the Bentley design studio.