Designer Dirk van Braeckel was tasked to create Bentley’s first all-new car in 50 years. We bring you a close-up view…
Bentley design director Dirk van Braeckel was tasked to create the Crewe manufacturer’s first all-new car in 50 years. We bring you a close-up view…
CARtoday.com reported recently that the prototype GT coupé was equipped with a six-litre, twin-turbocharged W12 engine with a power output in excess of 375 kW. Though the engine is derived from the similarly configured powerplant used elsewhere in the Volkswagen group, it was designed and developed by Bentley. The GT coupé is expected to sprint from zero to 100 km/h in under five seconds and reach a maximum speed in excess of 290 km/h.
The GT coupé is just the start of a design revolution at Crewe. Before Van Braeckel arrived in 1999, the design team comprised just three people. At the latest count, the team now numbers 48 and is still rising, working in a design studio created on site to style the Bentleys of the future.
In designing the GT coupé, Van Braeckel had to create an entirely contemporary design that would still be instantly recognisable as a Bentley. “The car would need to be timelessly elegant and overtly sporting, yet carry four people and accommodate their luggage,” reported this week.
Van Braeckel said his design philosophy for the car was based on heritage and inspired by certain key cars in Bentley’s bloodline. “But, as I tell everyone, I refuse to do retro cars – there is just no need, and taking a 1952 R-type Continental and projecting it forward half a century would have been entirely wrong,” he said.
Instead, the designer looked at past models to find key styling elements that would always make a Bentley look like a Bentley, no matter when it was designed.
“I tried to understand where the roots came from and, if you look back at the early days of Bentley, it was all about the engine. They had the appearance of being powered by big engines that enabled them to be driven at high speeds, low revs and minimal effort. And that is as true today as it was then,” Van Braeckel said.
To capture the correct Bentley proportions, it was critical that the GT coupé had a short front overhang and a dominant bonnet, expressed by the unusually large distance between the front axle line and A-pillar, a source for the Crewe manufacturer said.
Given the package of requirements, the dangers of making the car too long and therefore both inelegant and impractical, were clear to see, Van Braeckel said. However, it was equally important that its cabin had a sleek and compact appearance.
Central to the design of the car is its pillar-less cabin. Creating a car with a “B” pillar would have been easy and expected, but the visual delight of an unbroken aperture from the front to the back of the cabin proved irresistible, the cardesignnews.com report said.
“Had we not done it,” Van Braeckel said, “no-one would ever have commented or criticised us. But once we saw how the car would look without a central pillar, we knew there was no other way to go – even if it has given my colleagues in engineering a few further challenges!”
The design team was well aware that the headlights and taillights of any car were perceived to be its jewellery, and getting those aspects right proved to be an essential task, the report said.
The team decided on an oval theme, which has occurred throughout Bentley’s design history, and applied it in a way that was memorable and eye-catching. Most noticeable is the decision to use a four-headlamp appearance at the front, with the inner lamps being the larger pair.
“Not only does this create a striking face for the car, it also acknowledges a time during the 1920s and 1930s when large and elegant headlamps, mounted close together either side of the hood, were the hallmarks of luxury car design,” Van Braeckel said.
“The principal reason, however, for designing the headlights in that way was to draw attention to the area between the lamps, namely the unique Bentley radiator shell. Using the same laser cut matrix technology for the grille found on the Arnage T, it adds presence and to the car’s overall appearance,” he added.
