2007 Bentley Continental Gt Gt on 2040-cars

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Bentley designer calls Lincoln Continental concept a Flying Spur 'copy' [w/poll]

When you first laid eyes on the new Lincoln Continental concept, we'd wager you were likely impressed, because it's an impressive design. But if you also thought it looked familiar, you're in good company. According to Car Design News, design chief Luc Donckerwolke over at Bentley thinks the Lincoln concept bears more than a passing resemblance to another Continental: Bentley's own Flying Spur. "This behavior is not respectable. Building a copy like this is giving a bad name to the car design world," Donckerwolke told CDN, after posting some disparaging comments on Facebook and offering in jest to send over the tooling. "It is very disappointing, especially for an exclusive brand like Lincoln," added Sangyup Lee, his deputy for exterior design. The irony is further entrenched by the name, which Bentley only dropped from its Flying Spur in its latest iteration but still uses for the coupe and convertible models. Both automakers have a deeply routed history with the nameplate, but Lincoln's stretches back further, having first used the handle in 1939 before Bentley did in 1952. However it's not the nameplate that's the subject of controversy here, rather the design of the vehicle to which it's applied. So what do you think, did Lincoln borrow too heavily from its British counterpart? Related Video:

2013 Bentley Continental GTC V8

Despite having a rich history of creating comfortable cars for the chauffeured elite, Bentley has also had an edge on performance that its former compadres at Rolls-Royce could not come close to. Because while the Rollers may have been the better cars to be driven in (and some would argue, they still are), the Bentleys were better to drive.
That's still true to this day, where the company, now situated under the umbrella of the Volkswagen Group, still offers all the same luxury and refinement as before, but it also includes even better drivability than before. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Continental range, where a full line of turbocharged 12-cylinder and Speed models are on offer, to say nothing of older Supersports models that were offered and the company's newest venture into the world of racing, the GT3.
But below the Speed cars and the other W12 cruisers, Bentley now offers eight-cylinder power in its Continental range. And despite this more focused approach to offering something a bit more frugal and efficient, it still has quite the focus on driver involvement. We recently spent a week under the summer sun in this droptop V8 GTC to experience just that.

Watch Bentley hood ornament emerge to tease next Flying Spur

Thanks to Bentley's premium customization branch, Mulliner, the current Flying Spur can be equipped with nearly any feature a customer wants. But there is one feature its bigger brother, the Mulsanne, has that it doesn't: a proper hood ornament. That's about to change, however, as a teaser video and image shows the next Flying Spur will have a retractable flying B at its nose. Bentley released two teasers for the upcoming model reveal, one a sketched silhouette of the car, the other a video of an ornament emerging from the hood. The ornament will be a departure from the outgoing model, which has the flat Bentley badge on its nose. Surely Rolls-Royce fanatics will have some fun with this, but we're here for it. The more hood ornaments the better. Teaser sketches never reveal much, but there are a couple small things we might be able to pull from the dark figure. It appears the front fascia could be more blunt and vertical than the outgoing model. The overall stance of the car could be going for a longer, lower and sleeker profile. The rear also appears to be more shapely, with slightly more pronounced lips and edges. But again, these are guesses at this point, as sketches can be misleading. We expect additional teasers will give us more information in the near future. Look for the all-new Flying Spur to debut later this year. News Source: Bentley Design/Style Bentley Luxury Sedan bentley flying spur