In early 2024, Bentley retired the W12 engine with orchestral fanfare and legacy speeches—but with no electric flagship in place. No halo product. No hero prototype. In its place are a pair of hybrids and vague promises of something eventually electric. Worse, unlike its storied 6.75-liter V8 that died with the Mulsanne, this 4.0-liter V8 and 3.0-liter V6 are barely removed from the engines of the same configurations and displacements used by Audi and Porsche SUVs.
Rolls-Royce, by contrast, offers its clientele the choice of either the exquisitely smooth and powerful BMW-derived twin turbo V12 and, with the Spectre, the most expensive electric car in serial production. It has made the combustion-to-electric transition feel not only dignified but desirable. Bentley, once the performance standard-bearer within the Volkswagen Group, now trails behind most of its corporate cousins: no plan, no presence, no propulsion story worth telling. It is not quite Jaguar’s full-scale identity collapse—but it rhymes.
Bentley was born in an age of mechanical heroism. W. O. Bentley earned his engineering stripes during the Great War by designing aero engines for British fighters, most famously the BR.1 rotary that hurled Sopwith Camels through hostile skies. Peace returned, and in 1919 Bentley Motors emerged with a singular aim: to build “a fast car, a good car, the best in its class.” The 1920s validated that aim on Europe’s toughest circuits. A band of wealthy daredevils known as the Bentley Boys swept the 24 Hours of Le Mans five times between 1924 and 1930, forging a legend in British Racing Green. Massive 4½-Litre and Speed Six machines combined brute stamina with surprising grace, shaming Bugatti and Alfa Romeo in equal measure. These triumphs, far from mere sporting footnotes, fused luxury and endurance into Bentley’s identity, a duality that would later prove both asset and albatross.
Even in those early triumphs, storm clouds gathered over Bentley’s independence. The Great Depression dealt a blow the young company could not withstand, and by 1931 Bentley Motors lay bankrupt, absorbed by its rival Rolls-Royce. A long era of strategic dormancy ensued, the marque’s feral spirit muffled beneath the crested grille of its new parent. Under Rolls-Royce, and later the Vickers conglomerate, Bentleys were quietly recast as “the silent sports car” — essentially rebadged Rolls-Royces, marginally swifter, fractionally less ostentatious, never permitted to upstage the senior brand. Post-war flashes of brilliance, such as the 1952 R-Type Continental that became the world’s fastest four-seat coupé, proved frustratingly rare. Most 1960s and 1970s Bentleys — S-Series, T-Series, derivative siblings of the Silver Cloud and Silver Shadow — settled into genteel obscurity.
Still, embers of revival glowed. By the early 1980s Vickers executives realized a subset of customers longed for the untamed vigor of the Bentley Boys. In 1982 the Mulsanne Turbo restored forced-induction thunder to the badge, and the 1985 Turbo R added chassis discipline that startled contemporary testers. The 1990s brought the Continental R and T coupés, visibly distinct from their Rolls-Royce counterparts, unapologetically muscular, and finally capable of standing on their own merits. Yet volumes remained tiny, profitability shaky, and a more decisive transformation required external muscle.
That muscle arrived in 1998 when a bidding duel for Rolls-Royce Motors ended with Volkswagen Group seizing Bentley and the Crewe works while BMW secured the Rolls-Royce name. Severed from its twin, Bentley now answered to a German giant with deep coffers and an appetite for technical theater. Central to VW’s plan was an unconventional sixteen-bank power unit: the 6.0-litre W12, effectively two narrow-angle VR6s on a common crank. Twenty-four percent shorter than a classic V12, the W12 generated prodigious torque while permitting packaging advantages unheard of in a front-engine, all-wheel-drive grand tourer.
The W12 debuted in the 2003 Continental GT and re-charted Bentley’s trajectory overnight. At 552 horsepower, the 5,300-pound coupé vaulted from standstill to sixty in 4.7 seconds, a revelation in 2003. More crucial was the buyer profile the Continental lured: youthful, entrepreneurial, often newly wealthy, drawn to the mix of quattro-like stability, old-world craft, and understated British bravura. Annual sales that once languished below 2,000 rocketed beyond 15,000 by 2022, outpacing Rolls-Royce nearly three to one. Crewe had become a hive rather than a relic.
Over the next two decades more than 100,000 W12 engines emerged from Bentley’s Dream Factory, each unit consuming roughly 6.5 hours and 2,600 finely machined parts. Continuous refinement raised peak output to 750 horsepower in the limited-run Batur while torque crested at an even 1,000 newton-metres. Clients revered the dual persona: whisper-silk docility at idle, a basso-profundo bellow at full throttle, all inside a block compact enough to leave the nose elegant rather than proboscidean.
Volkswagen’s overhaul extended far beyond engines. Computer-aided design, statistical process control, and group-wide infotainment lifted Crewe into the twenty-first century. Platforms shared with the VW Phaeton and Audi A8 endowed Bentleys with air suspension, ESP, and safety systems the old firm could never have afforded. Purists fretted over DNA dilution, yet the market roared approval. Mulliner, resurrected for ultra-low-volume exotica such as the 2020 Bacalar and 2022 Batur, ensured Bentley’s bespoke artistry survived even as production scaled.
The racing soul stirred once more. In 2003 a Bentley Speed 8, engineered with Audi’s endurance expertise, conquered Le Mans outright, closing a seventy-three-year loop. Continental GT3 programs throughout the 2010s secured class victories, underscoring that performance still pulsed beneath the hides and veneers. By 2022, with the Bentayga SUV accounting for roughly forty percent of sales and a margin of 20.9 percent on each car, Bentley boasted the healthiest balance sheet in its 104-year history.
Yet amid the jubilation an existential shadow lengthened. Global regulation tightened inexorably around large combustion engines, and in July 2024 Crewe bid farewell to the W12. Workers formed a human “W12” as the last unit left the line. Bentley promised an Ultra High Performance Hybrid — a twin-turbo V8 paired with advanced batteries, exceeding 750 horsepower while trimming WLTP emissions to roughly 50 grams of CO₂ per kilometre. Electrification had arrived, though not in the form many enthusiasts imagined.
Here the narrative begins to blur. Bentley’s Beyond100 roadmap, trumpeted in 2020 as an environmental inflection point, pledged an all-electric lineup by 2030. That deadline now sits ten years after Spectre’s arrival at Goodwood, and five years behind Lamborghini’s first EV. Bentley’s first battery-electric model, once forecast for 2025, was quietly pushed to 2026. Then, in late 2024, the 2030 milestone slipped to 2035. No product previews. No concept halo. No reassurance to loyalists. The official line cited “macroeconomic uncertainty” and VW Group software integration issues. The subtext was clearer: Bentley wasn’t ready, and now it’s stalling.
Externally, the landscape offered no reprieve. Luxury EV momentum faltered in 2023 and 2024 as charging networks failed to materialize in key markets—North America, the Gulf States, Southeast Asia. Flagship customers unaccustomed to inconvenience resisted the prospect of cords, apps, or range anxiety. Inside Crewe, engineering remained hostage to the long-delayed SSP platform overseen by Audi. The result: no timeline, no hardware, no story. Bentley’s electrification trajectory, once a thesis, now reads like a footnote.
Contrast that with Rolls-Royce. In 2021, the brand announced it would go fully electric by 2030. No hedged hybrids, no interim ICE stopgaps. Just a clear promise—and delivery. The Spectre arrived in late 2023 not as a concept, but as a production Rolls-Royce, engineered around electric propulsion. No fallback V8. No carryover combustion options. In an industry of caveats, Rolls-Royce issued a declarative sentence.
Spectre validated the vision. Twin motors. 584 horsepower. 900 newton-metres. A 102-kWh battery yielding more than 500 kilometres of serenity. The departure of the iconic 6.75-litre V12 didn’t empty the cabin; it consecrated it. At a base price exceeding $420,000—and climbing rapidly with bespoke indulgence—Spectre was no niche experiment. Order books filled. There was no backlash, only waiting lists.
The implication for Bentley could not be clearer. If the world’s most conservative automotive clientele could embrace a $450,000 electric coupé from Rolls-Royce, what excuse remains for delay in Crewe? Bentley has neither the gravity of Rolls nor the exotic license of Bugatti. Its window for leadership is narrow. And slipping. The more it waits, the less compelling its first EV must be to stand out. Beyond100, once framed as a mandate, now feels like a placeholder.
Meanwhile in Molsheim, Bugatti took a very different approach. The 2024 Tourbillon, developed under Rimac stewardship but still bearing the Bugatti badge, rejected both downsizing and full electrification. Instead, it doubled down. An 8.4-litre naturally aspirated V16, paired with three electric motors and a 25-kWh battery. Total output: 1,800 horsepower and 1,985 newton-metres. Top speed: north of 440 km/h. Regulatory compliance: barely, strategically, and on its own terms.
The Tourbillon’s name signaled intent. In watchmaking, a tourbillon is an unnecessary but beautiful complexity—a flourish in search of perfection. Bugatti’s new halo car follows suit. Nothing is borrowed. Not even a door handle. The Cosworth-developed V16 has no lineage in the Group. The interior switchgear is bespoke. The platform is new. The car is absurd—and brilliant. It does not apologize. It performs. It asserts.
And it worked. All 250 units sold out before testing began. Each priced north of €3.8 million. Some will be museum pieces. Others will never see a road. It doesn’t matter. The Tourbillon proves that when allowed to pursue identity at full throttle, a brand—even within Volkswagen—can still captivate. The contrast with Bentley is painful. Bugatti was allowed to build a myth. Bentley is being told to wait for a module.
Too slow to lead. Too large to be niche. Too cautious to inspire. Bentley, once the most compelling fusion of performance and luxury in the Group, now trails Bugatti in ambition and Lamborghini in narrative energy. It offers no electric benchmark, no design thesis, no propulsion story of its own. What it does offer: cautious hybrids and deferred intent. Walnut trim cannot compensate for strategic drift.
Lamborghini offers another contrast—less baroque than Bugatti, more theatrical than Rolls-Royce. Its hybrid transition is unapologetically extroverted. The Revuelto, launched in 2023, combines a 6.5-litre naturally aspirated V12 with three electric motors and a compact battery. Total output: 1,001 horsepower. Zero to one hundred in 2.5 seconds. Electric range? Ten kilometres. The point isn’t sustainability—it’s acceleration. The hybrid system is less a bridge to compliance than a nitrous kit built for the future.
The same formula drives the Urus SE. A 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, an e-motor in the gearbox, and 789 horsepower delivered with brute indifference to anything remotely ethical. Sixty kilometres of EV range earn it access to emissions-regulated city centres, but no one mistakes it for green. It’s a regulatory pass with an exhaust note. Lamborghini does not pretend otherwise. The timeline is fixed: full hybridization by 2024, first EV by 2028. The message is clear: we won’t dilute the brand, we’ll electrify the theatre.
And customers believe it. Lamborghini delivered over 10,000 cars in 2023. Its order books stretch into the future. Buyers wait, gladly, because the narrative is working. A Lamborghini is still bombastic, unhinged, and proud of it. The hybrids make it faster. The EV, when it comes, will be dramatic. The tone is coherent. In luxury, coherence is king.
And Bentley? The current lineup features a Flying Spur plug-in hybrid with a 3.0-litre V6 shared with the Porsche Cayenne. The flagship Bentayga hybrid uses a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 whose sibling appears in an Audi RS Q8. The badge may say Bentley, but the propulsion does not. They are fast. They are refined. But they do not feel authored. They feel assigned.
This is not a technical failure. It is a narrative one. Powertrains are not just machinery—they are mission statements. Rolls-Royce’s silent EV is a final expression of its whispering V12. Bugatti’s V16 is an architectural tantrum against downsizing. Lamborghini’s hybrids scream into the future on wide-open throttle. Bentley, by contrast, offers competence without conviction. Hybrids without heritage. Plans without poetry.
It didn’t have to be this way. The W12 gave Bentley a unique voice—smooth, compact, torquey, and sonorous. It let Crewe offer something that no one else in the Group could. Now, that void is filled with shared engines and delayed promises. There is nothing inherently wrong with a Porsche-derived V8. But in a Bentley, it needs to be more than adapted. It needs to be transformed. Right now, it isn’t.
The best Bentleys of the modern era—the 2003 Continental GT, the Mulsanne Speed, the Le Mans-conquering Speed 8—did not ask for permission. They did not wait for architecture. They led with presence, and the engineering followed. What Crewe needs now is not just an electric drivetrain. It needs a reason for being. A Bentley that tells a story no one else in Wolfsburg could write.
Instead, it has fallen silent. While Rolls redefines silence. While Bugatti screams in sixteen cylinders. While Lamborghini revs into absurdity. Bentley lingers in the in-between. Not loud. Not quiet. Not ahead. Not behind. Just present. A manufacturer with heritage in search of a future that still feels provisional.
There is still time. The 2026 EV could be extraordinary. The engineers in Crewe are as capable as any in the Group. The materials, the build quality, the interior craftsmanship remain industry benchmarks. But without a propulsion vision worthy of that work, the car risks being exquisite yet irrelevant. A Bentley, by definition, must not be timid.
Rolls-Royce found its voice in silence. Bugatti in excess. Lamborghini in speed. Bentley must now decide what it believes in. If it does not, others will decide for it. And by then, the only thing Crewe may have left to design is the footnote.
This is the moment. Not of crisis, but of definition. Bentley still holds equity no spreadsheet can quantify: the image of a Speed Six tearing down Mulsanne Straight, the ghost of a W.O.-tuned engine above the clouds, the crackling exhaust note of a Turbo R on an English B-road. Those memories can be carried forward. But only if Crewe dares to speak in its own voice again, rather than waiting for Wolfsburg to whisper permission.
The next Bentley must not be strategic. It must be emotional. It must not explain the business case. It must ignore it. It must not be “sustainable luxury” engineered to meet legislation. It must be a provocation—difficult, unprofitable, unnecessary, and unmistakable. Like the first Continental GT. Like the W12. Like a 6¾-litre V8 that rumbled for sixty years before disappearing without a direct successor.
Build the car no one needs. Build the car that answers no question. Build the car that demands to exist. A Bentley worthy of the badge does not arrive cautiously. It arrives with presence. With story. With spirit. Something the company still has, but may not always.
Because this era rewards narrative. Customers no longer buy the fastest or the most efficient. They buy belief. In a product, yes—but more often in the company behind it. Right now, Rolls believes in silence. Bugatti believes in violence. Lamborghini believes in drama. Bentley has not yet said what it believes in. That cannot last.
The window is narrow. Spectre is already on the road. Tourbillon is already sold out. The Revuelto is already howling. The moment for measured ambition has passed. What remains is courage. Bentley must choose to lead not because the numbers suggest it—but because the brand requires it.
All the parts are there. The factory. The designers. The artisans. The history. What is missing is only the will. And if Crewe does not act soon, it may find itself assembling beautiful machines that no longer mean anything.
In 2024, Bentley ended the W12. In 2026, it must announce what comes next. Not just technically. Philosophically. Emotionally. Culturally. Because if the company cannot articulate its future, it will be remembered only for how it once defined the past.
The question stands: What is Bentley thinking?