With no hint of reticence, Bentley calls the 2017 Bentayga the “fastest, most powerful, most luxurious and most exclusive SUV in the world.” The Bentayga comes with 600 hp, 664 lb-ft of torque and a top speed approaching 200 mph. It can tow 7,700 pounds, has four ride heights and nearly 10 inches of ground clearance. It has Tesla-style autonomous driving electronics, the world’s first 48-volt automotive system and 90 separate ECUs processing 100 million lines of code.
Inside are the hides of four cows, 15 separate pieces of veneer, mineral glass gauge covers, milled aluminum accents and tolerances measured in tenths of a millimeter. All this is before options; they can include a self-winding Breitling Mulliner Tourbillon watch in place of the standard timepiece, cast of solid gold with a diamond-studded mother of pearl face, still to be priced but certainly in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Just for the watch.
This inventory of superlatives provides only part of the reason Bentayga is as surefire as the auto biz can deliver. The rest is that the sky is no longer falling. The Great Recession is mostly a memory and the 1 percent is buying again. The luxury good sales have risen steadily most everywhere over the last 18 months. The Bentayga debuts right on time and ahead of a brace of higher-than-Range Rover, ultra-lux SUVS (confirmed from Lamborghini and Maserati, widely assumed from Rolls-Royce).
Traditionalists might scoff at the idea of a Bentley SUV, as they did at a BMW or Porsche or Jaguar SUV, but the reality remains: For much of the car-buying world, big, honking SUVs now symbolize success, achievement, status -- not some staid coupe or sedan, no matter how many cows the upholstery requires. Car companies built on the idea of demonstrating success, achievement and status can no longer ignore SUVs.
The Bentayga is related to other large SUVs from companies within the VW Group, including the Porsche Cayenne and Audi Q7. But at nearly 17 feet in length, the Bentley is longer, wider and heavier than them. Its exterior metal is aluminum, with Bentley’s Superform process (pressed with high-pressure air heated to 950 degrees) producing the sharp creases. Some structural elements are steel for deformation and crash-protection properties. Bentley engineers say the Bentayga’s side panel is the largest single-piece aluminum stamping in the world, and its aluminum intensive build saves 520 pounds compared to all-steel construction.
