2009 Bentley Continental Flying Spur Speed on 2040-cars

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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.

The Windsor Castle Concours d'Elegance in pictures, courtesy of Bentley

Bentley went to the Windsor Castle Concours of Elegance as the main sponsor and showed off six of its best among the gathering of "60 of the finest motor cars in the world," including the 4¼-liter Bentley 'Embiricos' Special built for a Greek shipping magnate and gentleman racer in the 1930s.
Even better, for us at least, is that when Bentley decided to capture the moment it took pictures of most of the metal on the lawn, not just the Bentleys. Thanks to that, we have a high-res gallery that's home to rarities like the Vauxhall 30-98 Type OE Boattail Wensum Tourer, beauties like the Bugatti Type 57S Atalante, long-tail Ford GT40, Maserati Tipo 60 Birdcage, Aston Martin DB4GT Zagato, a sinister Ferrari 250 GTO and the even more sinister Rolls-Royce Phantom Aerodynamic Coupe, among others. All you need to do now is click and enjoy.

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.