Bentley Bentayga arrived
almost three years ago and quickly became a commercial success. While it was
initially offered solely with a W12 petrol engine, the lineup was eventually
extended and now includes a petrol V8, a diesel V8 and a V6 plug-in hybrid.
Now, Crewe intends to give the
Bentayga the Speed treatment. Confirmed to Autocar by the company’s design
chief, Stefan Sielaff, after hinted back in 2016, the Bentayga Speed’s design
will represent a “big change”.
Bentley’s exec didn’t delve into specifics, but it will feature “more power for the W12 engine”. The twin-turbo 6.0-liter W12 unit currently
puts out 608 PS and 900 Nm of torque, so a Lamborghini
Urus-matching 650 PS seems entirely plausible.
The bump in power will allow the Bentley Bentayga
Speed to be faster to 100 km/h than the current W12, which takes 4.1 sec,
and top speed will probably increase from the latter’s 301 km/h.
Responsible for channeling the output to all four corners will, in all
likelihood, be the same ZF-developed eight-speed automatic transmission,
possibly with an updated software.
Given that the car marque launched the plug-in
hybrid and V8 gasoline derivatives of the Bentayga earlier this year, the Speed
version should arrive sometime in 2019.
