Bentley's New Ultimate Coupe Turns Luxury To The Max
Bentley has always had a reputation for delivering luxury, and they've really pushed things to the next level with their upcoming 2022 Continental GT Mulliner. The GT Mulliner is set to make its debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, alongside both the standard and electric versions of their 2022 Flying Spur S Sporting Style.
Like previous GT Mulliners, the new car will form a part of Bentley's Mulliner portfolio, a string of vehicles singled out by the attention to detail the world's oldest coachbuilder provides when constructing a vehicle. Mulliner itself is split into three portfolios, Mulliner Coachbuilt, Mulliner Collections, and Mulliner Classic. Both the Continental and Flying Spur are included in the "Collections" portfolio, which exists to offer customers even more premium versions of Bentley's flagship automobiles. While customization is always an option, Bentley says their Mulliner Collections vehicles feature "bespoke hides for the upholstery, accent-colored interior details and personalized embroidery or chrome overlays."
Pushing performance to the next level
The Crewe-based car manufacturer says their GT Mulliner is "The fastest, most dynamic, and most luxurious member of the Continental range." Performance is another key feature of the new continental, with speed and handling at the forefront. It's capable of going from zero to 60 mph in just 3.5 seconds and hits a top speed of 208 miles per hour thanks to its hand-crafted, 650 horsepower, W12 engine. The GT Mulliner also features electronic all-wheel steering, several driving modes, and 664 foot-pounds of torque. The all-wheel steering system ramps up the car's agility by giving the rear wheels up to four degrees of steering lock. At low speeds, the rear wheels angle themselves opposite to the front wheels allowing for a "rapid change in direction." At high speeds, they point in the same direction as the front wheels to improve stability.
Agility and ride quality have also been pushed to the max thanks to features like "three-chamber active air suspension with adaptive damping," carbon-ceramic brakes, and variable electronic stability control.
An emphasis on luxury
The Bentley experience isn't all about performance, there's an extreme luxury element too. Bentley drivers like to feel like they're traveling from place to place in a drier version of one of the Titanic's first-class cabins. The GT Mulliner goes all out to take this concept to the next level. The vehicle's exterior features a new 'Double Diamond' matrix grille in silver and black, with matching front fender vents, with its mirror caps coming in silver or black. Bentley also claims that the car features a system of "self-leveling badges" that keep the Bs on the 22-inch wheels vertical at all times. But owners of the GT Mulliner are likely to spend more time inside it than staring at it, and here Bentley has gone all out.
Close to 400,000 stitches pull the leather-lined interior together. That leather comes in a "unique" three-color combination which provides a "striking yet elegant contrast throughout the cabin." The seats themselves are quilted with a "diamond in diamond pattern" and Bently says the process used to stitch that pattern took 18 months to develop. This vehicle's "indented" leather trim can also be found around the roof, though this will be smooth if a customer opts for the glass-roofed version of the continental GT Mulliner.
Grand Black walnut veneer features on the center console, along with a "unique" clock from Swiss company Breitling. The instrument cluster, though digital, has been designed to mimic the look of the clock and may fool you at first glance — Bentley says that the "careful skeuomorphic design and the application of digital textures make the virtual dials look like real metal."
Pricing for the Continental GT V8 Mulliner is $306,600, while the Continental GT W12 Mulliner starts at $341,900. The GT V8 Mulliner Convertible has a price of $326,200, and the Continental GT W12 Mulliner Convertible rings in at $376,100. Release dates have not yet been made public in the United States.