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Bentley preps 'Centennary Specification' for all models built in 2019

For the entirety of Bentley's 100th year in business, the English carmaker will adorn its products with a Centenary Specification. The package consists of unique badging with specially developed Centenary Gold badge highlights, available Centenary Gold thread for the headrest logos, contrast stitching and cross stitching, and a "centenary welcome light" outside the vehicle. The in-house craftsmen have also developed unique embroidery. Bentley says the gold hue was inspired by metalwork on vintage models like the 1919 EXP 2 (pictured, red and silver) and 1929 Birkin Blower (pictured, green), the latter one of the company's Le Mans winners driven by Sir Henry "Tim" Birkin. The hue possesses an "elegant warm tone and a deep fluid shadow." The steering wheel badge, key fob, shift knob, and wheel center caps feature the tinted ring. The "B" badge on the radiator surround also features "1919-2019" script, and that script is found on the tread plates, too. For those who don't know, eponymous founder Walter Owen Bentley's engineering career began with locomotives — which he loved more than cars at one point — and motorcycles, before settling on automobiles. He bought his first car in 1910, a French DFP, and after improving it himself, set a 10-lap record at the Brooklands circuit. In 1912 he opened a DFP franchise with his brother Horace Milner as Bentley & Bentley, and further upgraded the car with a new piston design that was 88 percent aluminum and 12 percent copper. The Royal Naval Air Service adopted Bentley's piston design and Bentley's re-designed Clerget airplane engines, dubbed the Bentley Rotary. After the war, Bentley refocused on cars, and in 1919 released the 3-Litre, which boasted features like a cross-flow head, overhead cams working four valves per cylinder, and twin plugs in each cylinder. The company delivered the first production model in 1921, then went racing and won the second edition of Le Mans in 1924. That is how Bentley began to become "Bentley, ahem ...", and here we are. Next year, on July 10, the company plans to celebrate the feat appropriately. Related Video:

2021 Bentley Bentayga Speed previewed in official photos ahead of debut

The Bentley Bentayga Speed is about to be revealed (again), but this time it’ll be sporting all the upgrades applied to the 2021 model year Bentayga. Bentley provided us with a few official preview images of the SUV in camouflage ahead of its unveiling next Tuesday evening. You can check the three photos out in the gallery above. Differences between the upcoming Speed and regular Bentayga are plenty noticeable if you direct your attention to the rear of the vehicle. ItÂ’s sporting an aggressive, winged spoiler atop the roof that produces more downforce than the standard BentaygaÂ’s spoiler. Additionally, this model gets a unique quad-tipped exhaust design and rear diffuser. The front bumper is subtly changed to be a bit more pointy and threatening, but you need to look closer to see the differences here. The biggest change of all will be under the hood. This Bentayga will be rocking the uprated W12 engine that makes 626 horsepower and 664 pound-feet of torque. Since it was just released a little over a year ago, we donÂ’t expect the powertrain to be going through any major revisions. ItÂ’ll likely retain its crown as the “worldÂ’s fastest SUV” with a 190-mph top speed. ItÂ’s 0.5 mph faster than a Lamborghini Urus, so we considered them even. Maybe Bentley has gained something aero-wise with the revisions — weÂ’ll have to wait for the reveal to know. The 0-60 mph time of 3.9 seconds will likely remain unchanged, though. Expect all of the extra niceties announced for the standard Bentayga V8 to be making their way to the Speed, too. You can read our in-depth reveal post for all the details there. Watch out for the revised Speed to make its debut next week. Related video:

Trump reportedly says he wants to wipe German cars off the U.S. map

BERLIN/FRANKFURT — A report that U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to pursue German carmakers until there are no Mercedes-Benz rolling down New York's Fifth Avenue dented shares in the luxury car manufacturers on Thursday. An excerpt from German magazine Wirtschaftswoche's article, which cited several unnamed European and U.S. diplomats but did not include any direct quotes, could not be independently verified, while a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Berlin referred questions to Washington. The news and current affairs magazine said Trump had told French President Emmanuel Macron in April that he aimed to push German carmakers out of the United States altogether. Macron's administration in Paris declined to comment on the report. The Trump administration last week opened a so-called Section 232 trade investigation into vehicle imports, which could result in a 25 percent tariff on cars on the same "national security" grounds Washington used to impose metals duties in March. This could destroy exports by German carmakers, which control 90 percent of the U.S. premium market and are the biggest European Union exporters of cars to the United States. BMW owns Rolls-Royce, while Daimler has Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen controls Bentley, Bugatti, Porsche and Audi. Daimler, BMW and Audi declined comment. Porsche was not immediately available for comment. BMW shares were trading 0.5 percent lower at 0939 GMT, while Daimler and VW's shares were down 1 percent and 1.6 percent respectively, underperforming Germany's blue-chip DAX. Trump has railed against German carmakers before. And in early 2017, in an interview with German newspaper Bild, he said he would impose 35 percent tariffs on imported cars. At the time, the president called Germany a great car producer but said that the business relationship with the United States was an unfair one-way street. Germany's auto industry association VDA says its members exported 657,000 vehicles to North America last year, with total exports of vehicle components, cars, engines, as well as second-hand vehicles totaling 31.2 billion euros in 2016. Imports from the United States to Germany amounted to 7.4 billion euros, meaning a trade deficit of 23.8 billion euros the VDA's latest available figures show. However, German brands also have huge factories in the United States, where they built 804,000 cars last year, VDA said, providing jobs for U.S. workers. Berlin has reacted angrily to the U.S.