Bentley to celebrate its centenary with $2.2 million hypercar – report

Bentley is reportedly investigating a high-priced limited edition vehicle to celebrate the company’s centenary in 2019.

Wolfgang Durheimer, Bentley’s CEO, told Top Gear last week that “our centenary would be a good time to create a new limited series car”.

The British publication believes that any limited run anniversary vehicle would have a price tag around the one million pound ($2.2 million) mark.

Durheimer indicated the company would study its options “intensively in Crewe within the next month” with options including a “standard” hypercar or one with lots of “carbonfibre and lightweight components”. Whatever the company decides upon, it will need to be ready by 2019.

In addition to his role as CEO of Bentley, Durheimer is also in charge of Bugatti. The France-based super-luxury car maker is currently preparing a successor to the Veyron.

Industry gossip indicates that the car will be named Chiron, and will have a price tag of around 2.2 million euros ($3.5 million). The “base” version of the Chiron will use a 1100kW 8.0-litre W16 engine coupled to an all-wheel drive system. A top speed of about 460km/h and a 0-100km/h time of around 2.3 seconds are expected.

Martin Winterkorn, the Volkswagen group’s CEO, has confirmed there will be also be “a hybrid version with improved performance”.

Durheimer’s comments were made before news of the “dieselgate” scandal broke. It’s not clear what impact, if any, the emissions cheating saga will have on the group’s product development plans.

The German automaker has, so far, set aside 6.5 billion euros ($10.2 billion) to investigate and rectify EA189-engined vehicles equipped with software that reports false emissions data.