2008 Bentley Continental Gt Speed Coupe 2-door 6.0l on 2040-cars

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The 2020 Bentley Flying Spur has 3-D wood now, and it looks spectacular

This is the coolest wood you’re going to see today. We promise. Bentley is now manufacturing something it calls “Three-Dimensional Wood.” And yes, all wood we come into contact with is 3-D, but this stuff pops out at you like people and items do in a 3-D movie. YouÂ’ll find it in the rear door inserts of the Bentley Flying Spur, assuming the owner checked the box. One look at the photos will have you going, “how the Â… ?” Yes, itÂ’s pretty wild to see, and we can imagine the effect it has in person is even stronger. Bentley did explain how it made wood look like the diamond-quilted leather it uses in its seats, though. As one would expect from Bentley, itÂ’s a hell of a process.  Each rear door and quarter panel is crafted out of a single block of wood. Bentley uses either American Walnut or American Cherry timber. They start by machining the back of the log to match a die-cast aluminum door panel template. ItÂ’s bonded to the template, and then the difficult work begins. Skilled craftspeople carve the wood to its three-dimensional surface with a multi-axis routing machine to a tolerance of 0.1 mm. They then hand finish the cuts to achieve perfect results. Finally, a lacquer is applied to attain the color and texture that Bentley desires. Left: EXP 10 Speed 6 Concept; Right: Production Flying Spur pattern This design of wood was first seen in a Bentley concept from 2015. It was called the Bentley EXP 10 Speed 6 (shown above, left). After the positive reaction to that design, Bentley says it felt a production adaptation was in order.  “Three-Dimensional Wood is the next interior design element weÂ’ve taken from concept car idea to production reality,” Brett Boydell, Head of Interior Design for the Flying Spur said. “It works in perfect harmony with the three-dimensional leather quilting across the cabin of the Flying Spur and creates an even more special environment for those being driven.” If you were to count the number of carved diamonds in the wood, youÂ’d come to a total of 150 in the Flying Spur. As of now, the big sedan is the only Bentley this option is available in. We wouldnÂ’t be surprised if it expanded to others in the future. In addition to that, this is a design that could be translated into lesser luxury cars using cheaper processes and 3-D printing. Bring on the 3-D wood. Related Video:    

2013 Bentley Continental GTC V8

Despite having a rich history of creating comfortable cars for the chauffeured elite, Bentley has also had an edge on performance that its former compadres at Rolls-Royce could not come close to. Because while the Rollers may have been the better cars to be driven in (and some would argue, they still are), the Bentleys were better to drive.
That's still true to this day, where the company, now situated under the umbrella of the Volkswagen Group, still offers all the same luxury and refinement as before, but it also includes even better drivability than before. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Continental range, where a full line of turbocharged 12-cylinder and Speed models are on offer, to say nothing of older Supersports models that were offered and the company's newest venture into the world of racing, the GT3.
But below the Speed cars and the other W12 cruisers, Bentley now offers eight-cylinder power in its Continental range. And despite this more focused approach to offering something a bit more frugal and efficient, it still has quite the focus on driver involvement. We recently spent a week under the summer sun in this droptop V8 GTC to experience just that.

The Volkswagen Group switches official language to English

The Volkswagen Group can't be fairly thought of as entirely German anymore, so the news that the company is switching its official language to English to help attract managers and executives is a rational, if surprising, decision. While many VW Group companies are still staidly German in character and culture, consider the other companies that it controls: Bentley (British), Bugatti (French), Ducati and Lamborghini (Italian), Skoda (Czech), Scania trucks (Swedish), and SEAT (Spanish). Not to mention the large Volkswagen Group of America operation, which constructs cars in Chattanooga, TN. Volkswagen's explicit motivation is to improve management recruitment – making sure the company isn't losing out on candidates for important positions because they can't speak German – and that's inherently sensible in a globalized economy. Particularly considering, like it or lump it, that English is the lingua franca of said global economy. It also should make it inherently easier to communicate between its world-wide subsidiaries and coordinate operations. It's hard to say for sure if this will have any impact on the consumer, although it's easy to see the benefits if, say, VW Group hires some American product planners or engineers and they push for features and designs that more closely suit American needs. After all, the US is a hugely important market for any manufacturer, and so the switch to English almost certainly has something to do with the outsized influence of the US in the global economy. And there doesn't seem to be a downside from a purely rational perspective, although it could mean that the Group's corporate culture becomes less German. Whether that's a good or a bad thing depends on your perspective. Related Video: Image Credit: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images Plants/Manufacturing Audi Bentley Bugatti Porsche Volkswagen SEAT Skoda