Bentley News: A Bentley Executive Talks About An Entry Level Model

[William Maley]

Bentley has lineup expansion on the mind. Auto Express reports that the British luxury car maker is considering adding a smaller model towards the end of the decade. This comes from comments made by Kevin Rose, Bentley's Sales and Marketing boss.

"We’ve said that we’re looking at an SUV, then we’ll replace the Continental and Flying Spur. Then a small car could be something we’d do," said Rose. “A small car would enable us to have something up against Aston Martin and Maserati.”

Rose went onto say, “Price is an important part of exclusivity, so it’s hard to see us coming down to anything under £100,000.”

So what could this entry level model could be? A previous rumorpile report from September says it could be a four-door coupe that will use the upcoming MSB platform from Porsche and feature V6 and diesel engines.

Source: Auto Express

William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.

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[balthazar]

didn't astom-martin just drop their small car? The cignet?

This is COMPLETELY below where bentley supposedly is positioned. There's a few million that could easily be spend on making the core vehicles have some actual, detailed, distinctive bodywork rather than the bland, generic-cism they've been peddling up to now. I mean, look at the price tags on bentleys; why for one hot second ISN'T the interior for the concept EXP 9 immediately in regular production- the bentley GT coupe is $240K! There shouldn't BE any bentley concepts- they should be the production cars.

[G. David Felt]

The cignet was a ultra sub compact car I believe. This sounds like a compact 4 door car. I still cannot see spending 100K on a Bentley 4 door compact or as they say a small car.

I agree with Balthazar that they are going in the wrong direction for a ubber exclusive auto company.

[Drew Dowdell]

The Cignet was a Scion iQ Brougham.... there was nothing at all Aston-Marton about it. The Bentley equivalent would be tarting up a VW Up! with expensive leather and a Bentley grille and charging a 100% price premium for it.

[smk4565]

Bentley already has a car on the A8 platform, so what is next, a Bentley A6 or A4? VW group has Audi to be the luxury brand, and Porsche for sports cars. Those 2 brands should be able to cover the $50-125,000 range. There is no reason for a Bentley to be under $150k, it is supposed to be expensive and over the top. An SUV is a bad idea too.

[Drew Dowdell]

There may be a market for a $110k A6 sized Bentley... it will be a small market, but it's there.