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2020 Bentley Flying Spur spied winter testing in Europe

The current Bentley Continental GT made its debut about a year and a half ago at the Frankfurt Motor Show. The big British coupe was joined about a year later by a drop-top variant, but there's been little word on the four-door model, the Bentley Flying Spur. We saw some spy shots last May of the car testing at the Nurburgring, and today we have a new batch of the Flying Spur doing winter testing in Europe. We don't know when the car might debut, but don't rule out a surprise reveal at next week's Geneva Motor Show. The cars in these photos are nearly uncovered. That said, if you're not paying attention, you may not notice much difference. Bentley has taken the Porsche approach to design, evolving the same basic formula rather than issuing a ground-up redesign. The lighting has all been updated, with larger lenses both front and rear. The smaller secondary headlights have moved further out on the front fenders. The upper and lower grilles, too, are larger, taking up a majority of the front end. The profile is generally unchanged, though some of the lines appear to be a little sharper, giving the Flying Spur a more muscular appearance. Expect the 6.0-liter twin-turbo W12 to soldier on. In the Continental, the engine makes 626 horsepower and 664 pound-feet of torque. The Flying Spur should get a similar output. As on the coupe, expect a V8 and plug-in hybrid variant to follow in the next few years. Related Video:

Average Bugatti owner has 84 cars, 3 jets, 1 yacht

Between Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, Bentley and Bugatti, the Volkswagen Group has no lack of prestige marques under its umbrella. And while some of these marques may produce models that compete against each other, each seems to be profitable enough in its own right to justify its existence. But what about Bentley and Bugatti? Surely these marques cater to the same customers, right?
Not according to their shared CEO. "The clientele between Bentley and Bugatti is remarkably different," said Wolfgang Dürheimer in an interview with Bloomberg. "The Bentley customer on average owns 8 cars. The average Bugatti customer has about 84 cars, 3 jets and 1 yacht."
That may be a slight exaggeration (we'd have expected three yachts and one jet), but it puts things into perspective: Bentleys are for the one percent. Bugattis are for the one percent of that one percent. Which only goes to show why it's taken Bugatti over eight years to sell 450 Veyrons - a number of units it would take Bentley about two weeks to move, albeit at about one tenth the price.

Bentley to retire aging 6.75-liter V8 with current Mulsanne

The massive 6.75-liter V8 in the Bentley Mulsanne is one of the oldest engines still in production. But it may not be around for much longer. According to Car and Driver, Bentley intends to finally put the big old pushrod V8 to pasture once the current Mulsanne is phased out, thus putting an end to a saga that goes back some 57 years. Powerful as it may be, ever-stricter exhaust emissions and fuel-consumption regulations will see that the L Series V8, originally introduced way back in 1957, doesn't stay in production forever. Whenever the Mulsanne is replaced, it will reportedly get a brand-new twelve-cylinder engine. Bentley is currently the world's largest producer of dozen-pot powerplants. Production of the British automaker's 6.0-liter twin-turbo W12 far outpaces anything from Rolls-Royce, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Ferrari, or Lamborghini. Over the decades since its introduction, Bentley's long-serving V8 has gone from making an "adequate" amount of power and torque to an impressive 530 horsepower and a positively massive 811 pound-feet (with the help of a couple of turbochargers). Its eventual discontinuation wouldn't be the first attempt on the life of the 6.75-liter engine. When BMW briefly took control of both Rolls and Bentley, it replaced the big engine by a smaller 4.4-liter V8. Customer demand led Bentley to bring the old engine back. It will likely be some time before we get details of Bentley's next powerplant. Models like the Mulsanne and Rolls-Royce Phantom tend to stick around for a long time, and the latest version of Bentley's flagship was just released earlier this year. Related Video: