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Bentley EXP 100 GT could become an ultra-exclusive topless two-seater

By most standards, Bentleys are already pretty expensive, but as the global economy funnels more and more wealth to the very top, the luxury automaker plans to cater to an ever-richer clientele with ultra-exclusive, even-more-expensive models. Britain's Autocar reports that one such proposed model is an open-topped two-seater that borrows heavily from the EXP 100 GT concept (pictured), which, if approved, would sell for 1.5 million pounds ($1.9 million) or more. Although the EXP 100 GT concept, which debuted this past summer in celebration of the brand's 100th anniversary, had a configurable two- or four-seat interior and a mostly glass roof, the proposed model is a two-seater with no roof whatsoever — practicality, evidently, not being much of a consideration for the ultra rich. Exclusivity, however, is very important, and it's said that only 12 examples would be built, with Bentley's in-house coachbuilder Mulliner tasked with the construction. Whereas the concept was an EV, the Mulliner-built car would ditch that idea in favor of a traditional Bentley W12 borrowed from the Continental GT — which currently makes 626 horsepower and 664 lb-ft of torque. From the concept, the new model borrows its styling, as well as some of it exotic materials, which included 5,000-year-old wood salvaged from peat bogs and infused with copper, synthetic leather created from wine-making byproducts, and crystal trim elements. If approved, the two-seat barchetta could arrive as soon as 2021. Bentley Convertible Luxury

Meet the Bentley Inspirator, your A.I. Bentayga configurator

The future of the car configurator just sprouted a tender new shoot. The Bentley Inspirator app relieves Bentayga buyers of most of the heavy lifting when they're trying to sort out what kind of image they want their super-luxe SUV to project. Usable on any Apple iOS device, the app plays a video and then scans the viewer's face for emotional cues. The video changes based on the viewer's responses to on-screen images, so theoretically, two viewers shouldn't see the same video. The app achieves this by noting 34 "facial landmarks" based on an "emotion data repository" filled with "more than 12 million emotion data points" provided by 3.4 million faces from 75 million countries. At the end of the film, the app suggests a Bentayga configuration, from colors to veneers to wheels. Now fresh from the effort, the prospective customer can apply all of his or her energies to fine tuning the result. You can download it from Bentley's site or the app store, watch the video of how it works above, and check out the press release below. Related Video: BENTLEY INSPIRATOR: PERSONAL PREFERENCE BROUGHT TO LIFE - Inspirator app is the next generation of digital car configurator - Emotion-recognition technology interprets users' facial expressions and generates vehicle configuration - Bentley Inspirator application available to download now at www.bentleymotors.com/inspirator and in Apple App Store (Crewe, 21 October 2015) Personal style preferences can now be transformed into recommendation, with Bentley's latest innovation: the Inspirator. The application monitors the users' facial expressions and reactions and interprets them in order to configure the perfect Bentley for them. Utilising any iOS device's camera function, the application's facial and emotion recognition software measures and analyses the viewer's emotion based on nuanced facial expressions. 34 facial landmarks are identified at 15 frames per second, as the viewer reacts to stimulating film content. The accurate emotion metrics algorithms are built using the world's largest emotion data repository – 3.4 million faces have been analysed in 75 countries amounting to more than 12 billion emotion data points. The viewer's reactions dictate a unique film narrative; the film changes according to what the user responds to most positively, but also deciphers their preferences, creating a unique configuration revealed at the end of the film.

A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.