Bentley Torcal: What we want. What we like.

First things first: the name says it all. For one thing, it refers to the unique karst landscape El Torcal de Antequera in Andalusia. The layered rock formations and steep cliffs were shaped over millions of years by wind, rain, snow and ice, and impress tourists, geologists and biologists alike. And then there’s the derivation from the Latin ‘torquere’, meaning ‘to turn’, from which the modern word for torque is also derived. It amounts to 1,350 newton-metres. That delivers a maximum acceleration of 2.9 seconds. That fits. And that brings us to the point. 

However, the press release for the world premiere contains a sentence that no longer quite fits. This level of performance was apparently a conscious decision by the development team, in the knowledge that most customers would find even stronger acceleration unpleasant.

Hello!? We need to talk. 

For a hundred years, the motor industry sold figures. More horsepower, fewer seconds, and that decimal point was worth an advertising budget. Whoever was faster was right. Bentley is now setting a limit in its own press release and justifying it on the grounds of its customers’ stomachs. Discomfort as a specification in the requirements document. There’s a certain humour in this, given that the comfort threshold lies at a figure that, not so long ago, would have filled supercar brochures.

It’s not all that new, though. Bentley has never been the brand for the final tenth of a second. The word that has been used in Crewe for generations is ‘effortless’, and what was always meant was the power you don’t need. Ideally, a Bentley would accelerate in such a way that the passenger simply carried on talking. Reserve was the real asset – the knowledge of power that one does not draw upon. So the sentence from the press release merely sets out what the brand has always been selling. What is new is that someone has put it in writing.

The neuroscientist Kent Berridge distinguishes between two systems in the brain that we tend to mistake for one: wanting and liking. One drives us towards reward, the other signals whether it feels good, and the two are surprisingly often at odds with one another. The data sheet is a ‘wanting’ machine; every tenth of a second brings a new lure. Bentley claims to know what his customers like, but won’t reveal where that knowledge comes from.

And then there is still one aspect of ‘wanting’ that has only a limited connection to performance: the design.

Under the leadership of Design Director Robin Page, the in-house design team in Crewe has created a sleek, elegant SUV with a new design language. One that remains a Bentley through and through, deeply rooted in the brand’s DNA. That goes without saying.

The design of a Bentley follows a precise logic: “During development, we focus on how people perceive an object quite intuitively. A vehicle reveals itself gradually as you look at it. Perception follows a fixed hierarchy, for which we have established the concept of the four ‘reads’,” explains Robin Page. This means that the first glance focuses on the proportions. The second glance focuses on the graphic elements. Thirdly, the focus shifts to the design language and surface treatment. Last but not least, the eye is drawn to individual details and facets.

In the case of the Torcal, this translates into the following: five metres long, flat and elongated, it is the shortest four-door model in the Bentley range. It is also the first Bentley to feature the redesigned brand emblem. The bodywork rises powerfully above the rear wheels, which is why the design team affectionately refers to the car as the ‘sleeping beast’.

And what does a Bentley without a combustion engine actually sound like? A bit like a 6¾-litre V8. At least, the Torcal’s sound is inspired by it. This is made possible by the Bentley Dynamic Symphony. Musicians recorded the engine sound using drums, a viola and a bass guitar.

Until the first test drive, you can find all the information about the new Bentley Torcal here.

→ bentleymotors.com