While some car manufacturers say their future is in “ride-sharing autonomous mobility” and other stupid stuff that nobody asked for, Bentley knows what people want. They have just released EXP 100 GT, a concept car to mark Bentley’s centenary.
The EXP GT is how Bentley imagines GT cars will be in 2035. It’s a big car, at 5.8 meters long and 2.4 meters wide (0.2 meters wider than the Hummer H1), and reportedly weighs 4200 lbs. A lot of this weight comes from the fact that its an EV. But with 1106 lb ft of torque, it’ll still accelerate hard enough to give you whiplash, reaching 60 mph in 2.5 seconds, and it’ll keep going until it hits 186 mph, according to Bentley. Another impressive statistic is how quickly it can charge up to 80%- just 15 minutes. And it has a range of 435 miles, more than any EV currently on sale.
Inside there is lots of nice materials, many of which are sustainable, such as synthetic leather made from the by-products of wine production. It also has some less-sustainable materials, including 5000-year-old copper-infused riverwood. That can’t be too common.
Those synthetic leather seats can be configured in three different ways, and are “biometric,” being capable of adapting to temperature and passenger position to provide the maximum comfort.
Unfortunately, while its not a dystopian pod-thing that some other manufacturers envision, it is autonomous. It also has AI, called Bentley Personal Assistant, which presumably works like Siri, with the added ability of understanding Scottish accents. Hopefully.
The car has a glass roof which can have its darkness adjusted. In the lightest mode, Bentley says it’ll give you the experience of a convertible with the roof down, by altering air quality, smells, and how much sound it lets in the interior. None of this is done through physical buttons or knobs. In fact, pretty much the only physical controls in the interior are the pedals and the steering wheel. Everything else is controlled by Gesture Controls, because who doesn’t like to wave their finger around to do simple tasks? But Bentley promises that in the future, the technology will work better than it does now, and if it doesn’t, there’s always Bentley Personal Assistant to fall back on.
In terms of exterior styling, its relatively conservative, once you peel away the concept car touches, like the scissor doors which increase the height of the car by 1 meter when opened. From the front, it look similar to the current Continental GT, but with a bigger grille. But the large grille fits with the proportions of the car, unlike the new BMW 7 Series. The rear haunches are inspired by the R-Type Bentley Continental from the 1950’s, while the taillights look to the future- they’re not even lights. Its an OLED screen, which can show different patterns. It may seem like a concept car gimmick, but it could have safety benefits- maybe in the future they could programme it to flash when someone is following too closely.
This isn’t a production car, but its likely certain elements will make its way into future Bentleys. And even if it can’t be driven on the road, it still beats a birthday cake with a hundred candles.
