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2018 Bentley Continental Supersports | More exciting than space travel

For the final song on their delightfully buoyant and mordant 1996 album This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About, Pacific Northwest indie rock band Modest Mouse penned an even more cynical response to David Bowie's already nihilistic ode to interstellar flight, "Space Oddity" The song imagines the life of a lonely female passenger on a flight to some distant lunar satellite, lost in post-gravitational anomie ("She's the only rocketeer in the whole damn place/They gave her a mirror so she could talk to her face.") Dreading the endless blankness of her voyage as much as the senseless achievement of reaching its destination, the unnamed woman wishes she could just read a dime-store novel and return home. It is titled, poignantly, " Space Travel is Boring." We recently visited the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, NASA's literal launch pad for the Apollo missions and the Space Shuttle. Since there are currently no rockets going up, Space Florida's Shuttle Landing Facility did us the favor and allowed us to use the 3.5-mile-long runway built for the Shuttle — literally, the longest stretch of underutilized, perfectly straight, perfectly paved roadway in the world — for a series of automotive maneuvers. Our vehicle of choice was the $293,300 2018 Bentley Continental Supersports. This was decidedly not boring. The Supersports is an enhanced version of an already extremely potent vehicle. Featuring an upgraded crankshaft, torque converter, and turbochargers for more power and improved power delivery, the Supersports' 6.0-liter W12 engine produces an even 700 horsepower, and 750 lb-ft of torque. That makes this the most powerful and fastest Bentley ever made. Sixty miles per hour is dispatched in 3.4 seconds on the way to a maximum velocity of 209 mph. The largest carbon ceramic brakes of any production car come as standard equipment, as do carbon fiber hood vents, front splitter and rear air diffuser, side trim, and a planed long-board of a rear wing. Handsome 21-inch lightweight forged wheels are also part of the package, though, really, weight savings is almost irrelevant in this vehicle. The Supersports weighs over 2.5 tons, or about as much as one of the tread belt shoes on the diesel/electric crawler used to tug the 70-million-pound Space Shuttle and its boosters out onto Canaveral's runway. We were tugged out onto the runway as well, though in a slightly different fashion.

Lamborghini and Bentley may hold off on SUVs so VW can conserve cash

After surveying the European economic scene, Volkswagen may have decided now is not the time to launch utility vehicles with Bentley and Lamborghini badges. Bentley officials say they will continue to push for support for the EXP 9 F and Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelman has said planning for the Urus will continue until VW tells it to stop.
That decision could come on November 23, when VW's board will vote on the company's budget for equipment, factories and vehicles. With VW's sales slowing and the Euro economy slumping further, some industry watchers say the company is more likely to build its cash reserves than to introduce super-expensive luxury SUVs or crossovers.
"Such vehicles are anything but obligatory during a crisis," says Frankfurt-based Equinet AG analyst Tim Schuldt in a new Automotive News Europe story. "Delaying their launch would be no drama but help save costs."

2015 Bentley Flying Spur V8

Despite Bentley's reputation as a holier-than-thou, ultra-luxury brand, at the end of the day, the Big B is still a business. As such, ongoing trends like powertrain downsizing and model range expansion are more prevalent at Bentley than ever. Just look at the Continental range - what started as the GT W12 has expanded into the GTC W12, GT V8, GT V8 S, GTC V8, GTC V8 S, GT Speed and GTC Speed. Talk about "have it your way."
But there's good reason for that. So many of these vehicles, despite their hand-crafted, bespoke nature, are all - gasp! - plug-and-play exercises that allow Bentley to appeal to the broadest range of upper-lux buyers, while keeping development costs relatively low. It's a move that's indeed worked, the company managing to post healthy sales increases year after year. And that's only going to get better, following the launch of the Flying Spur sedan last year, not to mention the upcoming, highly anticipated SUV that's in the works. As Kevin Rose, Bentley's member of the board for sales, marketing and aftersales told me recently, "The best years are yet to come."
To further expand an already growing range, I recently hopped a plane to London to experience the second member of the Flying Spur family - the V8. This less-powerful Spur offers better fuel efficiency and a lower staring price, while not compromising any of the brand's core values of luxury and refinement above all. But to paraphrase what executive editor Chris Paukert said when he drove the Conti GT V8 in 2012, this is indeed The Thinking Man's Flying Spur. Here, less really is more.