2001 Bentley Azure Convertible. Symbolic Edition Car #2. 13k Miles. Very Custom. on 2040-cars

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Bentley shifting W12 engine production to UK

Who would you think would be the largest producer of 12-cylinder engines in the world? Mercedes? BMW? Ferrari? Think again: as you might have guessed from the headline, it's Bentley. The thing is that, while all Bentley automobiles are manufactured in the UK, its engines aren't: while the 6.75-liter V8 in the Mulsanne is made at home, the innovative 6.0-liter twin-turbo W12 engine in Continental models so equipped (like the newer 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8) is shipped in from Germany. But that won't be the case any longer.
Bentley has just announced that production of the W12 engine is moving to its home base in Crewe by the end of this year. The shift in production (which follows the migration of the Flying Spur from Dresden to Crewe in 2007) will create 100 jobs in the UK - a country which employs some 142,000 workers in the automotive sector - and produce as many as 9,000 engines per year. That in and of itself would account for the vast majority of the 10,000-plus cars Bentley made last year, but will also make Bentley an exporter of engines for the first time in its history.
Right there at the factory, Bentley will fit the engines into twelve-cylinder versions of the Continental GT, GTC and Flying Spur, and send some back to Germany for use in the Audi A8. Applications within the Volkswagen brand itself like the Phaeton and Touareg no longer use the W12 engine, but could conceivably use it again in the future - they'll just have to bring them in from England is all.

Bentley plotting Mulsanne performance model for Paris debut

Between three distinct body styles and numerous engine specifications, Bentley has made more versions of the Continental over the years than we would care to count. But one thing it has, by and (very) large left alone is the Mulsanne. Sure, it's done some special editions and some extra equipment packages - it's even toyed with the idea of a two-door convertible version - but at the end of the day, the Mulsanne soldiers on as a four-door sedan with one engine and one engine alone. That may be about to change, however.
Fueled by ambiguous pronouncements from Bentley's returning chief Wolfgang Dürheimer, rumors from the UK suggest that the Flying B marque is preparing a more performance-focused version of the Mulsanne to debut at the Paris Motor Show this October.
Details are few and far between, but we'd expect the Mulsanne's long-serving 6.75-liter V8 engine to be further tuned beyond its current specification of 505 horsepower and 752 pound-feet of torque, accompanied by a stiffer suspension, bigger brakes and other upgrades. Historically Bentley would turbocharge the Mulsanne's predecessors (to turn the 90s-era Brooklands, for instance, into the Turbo R), but the Mulsanne's engine is already spooled up, so the British automaker will likely have to massage the extra muscle out another way.

Bentley Flying Spur pictures leaked early

We can imagine that automakers are among the groups salivating at the prospect of a colony on Mars - perhaps a photo studio on the red planet will be far enough away from the terrestrial Internet to keep everything they've got from leaking all over the web. In the midst of Bentley's teasing for the next-generation Flying Spur, someone got in early on a set of photos and decided to share them with us.
The transformation is all about character, the super sedan's lines getting injected with a whole lot more of it. The family face of the Continental line is evident, the new Spur getting a more upright grille than before and a Mulsanne-esque undivided lower grille. The front fenders get narrow, horizontal vents, and behind that the character line that starts with at the hood shutline runs in a long arc to the rear door, then rolls up into haunches that terminate at the very back. Lower down, a character line cuts up the bulk up the sides. In profile there is a definite hint of this being a junior Mulsanne.
The only item we see at the moment that could take some getting used to are the horizontal taillights. Housing a large single element topped by curved red brows, our initial impression is that they lack the flow of the rest of the car. Inside, it's what you'd expect from a Bentley.