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Bentley Entry Level Four Door Coupe Being Considered For 2018 Launch
As much as luxury car makers such as Bentley would like to continue catering to a niche market, the hard truth is that for them to be profitable they need to extend their offering into high volume segment. The sort of mass market sales that is associated with brands such as Audi or Mercedes, where sales reach a few thousands units on a regular basis, instead of just a few hundreds.
Car magazine is reporting that Bentley has indeed such a car in its mind, an idea that came into being after a brainstorming session headed by chairman Wolfgang Schreiber. The said car will be a four door coupe, that measures just under 5 meters, ready for production by 2018.
At the discussion, the team came to the conclusion that the four door coupe would be an entry level car, placed below the Mulsanne and the Continental GT. What's not clear is whether or not the car will fall under the Continental family.
The idea behind the new car is to pitch it as a sporty and dynamic model, competing against the likes of BMW M6 Gran Coupe and Mercedes CLS 63 AMG. Their aim is to sell 5000-6000 units annually. Something that would be possible when the car priced in the range of 125,000-150,000 Euros.
As for the engine, a sensible choice of V6 engines, along with diesel engines has been made. The tricky part was to finalize the platform. After considering Audi's D5 platform and the Porsche's MSB, (the same one that future Porsche Panamera models will be built on) the team stuck to the MSB.
The reason being: 1) It's a modular platform, that can also accommodate a future Mulsanne successor and support Bentley's 2020 strategy.
2) MSB platform can support all-wheel drive configuration outright, unlike the D5, which is primarily a front wheel drive platform.
3) MSB also offers more flexibility in terms of choice of materials compared to the D5, in addition to design flexibility.
"..we were looking at the big picture, for 2020 and beyond, when the brand will need a more flexible platform to underpin a Mulsanne successor. And it allows us to keep dreaming about a small Bentley. By small I mean sub-5 metres, but only just!" Car quotes a source as saying.
Apart from the entry level Coupe, Bentley's plans for the near future includes an SUV and next gen Continental GT and Mulsanne models, both of which will come before 2018.
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