Bentley Opens its Crewe Headquarters to the Public with New Design Exhibition

If you're a petrol head and live in or are considering a trip to England, you may want to make plans to visit Bentley's headquarters in Crewe and check out a new design exhibition called "An Unbroken Line", which offers a rare glimpse inside the company's usually secret studios.

The exhibition follows the development of a Bentley from the first sketch right through to the final product, and includes drawings from the prototype phase of models such as the new Continental GT that are being shown to the public for the first time ever.

Furthermore, the exhibition also captures key moments of the company’s lineage with signature characteristics that define a Bentley to this day such as the positioning of the headlights, the use of inverted needles on the dashboard and the pronounced ‘powerlines’ that sweep down the flanks of the car.

Dirk van Braeckel, Bentley’s Director of Design and Styling, commented: “What I particularly like about the exhibition is the sheer number and variety of interesting objects we’ve been able to bring together for the very first time, it is quite a collection. It is also fascinating to see just how talented the early Bentley designers really were - the beauty of their concept sketches and sheer precision of their technical drawings still inspires my own team to this day.”

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Bentley Silver Wings Design Study for a Bugatti Veyron Rival

At the 1999 Geneva Motorshow, Volkswagen Group-owned British carmaker Bentley showed a W16 powered supercar concept called the Hunaudières. It was a sleek, cab-forward design finished in British Racing Green and with more chrome than Ludacris' Escalade.

Like so many concept cars, the Hunaudières never made it past being a one-off and Bentley consigned itself once more to making cars for wealthy Brits and Paris Hilton.

Now, two industrial design students from China's Tainjin Academy of Fine Arts, Shawn Wood and Guohua Cheng, have resurrected the Hunaudières in the form of a design study called the Bentley Silver [Filver in one pic, but we guess that was a mistake] Wings.

It's the usual hodgepodge of design elements from Aston Martin, Zonda, Saleen and Bentley of course, but it still has a certain charm about it.

I especially like the Eurofighter-esque foreplanes where the wing mirrors should be and the wheel arches / side profile that emulates the Bentley Speed 8 Le Mans car. It's not a hideous design by any means, just...more of the same.

Mr. Wood and Mr. Cheng have recently graduated and are looking for work; Subaru: you may want to take note.

By Tristan Hankins

Source: Carbodydesign

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Fantasia: Bugatti EB1.2 TSI and Bentley Continental Super Mini

While we sincerely hope that no other supercar maker will ever follow in the degrading footsteps of Aston Martin and it's luxed-up Toyota iQ, the Cygnet, we have no problem whatsoever with photoshop artists attempting to imagine the impossible.

In this case a pair of Bugatti and Bentley superminis, both of which would, in theory, be based on the VW Group's Polo, Ibiza or Fabia hatchbacks. The two designs were created by Autoblog.nl reader Jasper van der Heiden. Check them out after the jump.

Via: Autoblog.nl

Is Bentley Considering a Shooting Brake Model?

Car and Driver had a chance to sit down with VW board member Stuart McCullough. In regards to future Bentley models, he said, "We have an idea in the back of our minds that we may yet bring to market."

Of course, this immediately led to whisperings and theories of a possible Continental Shooting Brake like Carozzeria Touring Superleggera's Flying Star (see here) that was revealed at this year's edition of the Geneva Motor Show.

While this would be cool, the magazine hits the nail on the head: how would they justify another model on an older platform versus derivatives of the new Mulsanne?

If, however, it were actually offered, it could be as an extremely-limited-number send-off for the Continental range before some new models show up. Ferrari's decided to do its own coachbuilding, so why not Bentley? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

By Phil Alex

Via: C&D

*Photos: Carozzeria Touring Superleggera's Bentley Flying Star