Celebrity Life

The latest hybrid version of the Bentayga Luxury SUV eschews outright performance and roadability for refined comfort and moderate gains in fuel economy.

Two months and two posh SUVs, one from Aston Martin and this month’s car from Bentley. You could argue they’re almost dead ringers for each other: both are from archetypally British brands with a reputation for luxury and sportiness, both have considerably more than a modicum of German engineering beneath the skin, and both occupy roughly the same price point – if you want to nitpick, even their logos are similar. But after driving both, I’d argue they could hardly be more different.

You see, the Aston Martin DBX we reviewed in the September issue of Prestige was fettled with an old-tech, purely petrol power unit, whereas the Bentley Bentayga Hybrid you’re reading about now has been partially future-proofed through the hefty and eco-friendly wallop of electricity that accompanies its traditional hydrocarbon-burning engine. Thus, it represents a modest but significant first step towards the total electrification of the entire Bentley fleet, a goal the company’s VW owners have fast-tracked it to achieve in just nine years. And that means we’ll soon be waving a tearful farewell to the magnificent W12 and smaller nut hardly less impressive V8 engines that have delighted us over the past couple of decades.

It’s an ambitious target, especially as the company only embraced hybrid technology a couple of years ago, though as the Brits can draw from an enormous bin of parts produced by its Porsche and Audi stablemates, it’s by no means an insuperable one. Indeed, in the case of this hybrid Bentayga, the solution was right there in the form of a turbocharged 3-litre V6 engine mated to a powerful electric motor, a combination already in use on other SUVs from the VW group, namely the Audi Q7 and (whisper it) the somewhat less patrician Volkswagen Touareg. We’ll get back to that a little later.

I was last behind the wheel of a Bentayga more than five years ago, on its media launch in Southern California to be precise, and as I watched my latest test car being gently unloaded from the flatbed transporter used to deliver it for my drive, I suddenly recalled just how massive the Bentley is. The relentless desert heat aside, what had stuck in my mind from that trip were the uncanny dynamic abilities the car displayed both on-road and off – we even drove our behemoths to a small racetrack out in the sticks, where they behaved with far more aplomb than a luxo-truck has any right to. Well, that and an interior more sumptuously palatial than I’d ever seen in an SUV (though more recently, Rolls-Royce has raised the ultra-SUV bar even further with the Cullinan). Perhaps being in the United States, where many road vehicles are the size of reasonably sized dwellings in other parts of the world, had blinded me to its size, but the Bentayga’s vastness had slipped from my mind almost completely.

Since then, Bentley has treated the car to a mid-life massage both outside and in – we’re told it involved more than 1,000 upgraded components, though the most obvious differences from launch models are the revised front grille and lights, tailgate, oval rear lamp cluster and new wheel options, all of which are intended to align more closely with the current Continental GT, as well as a more up-to-date infotainment system with a larger and more legible touchscreen. In most other respects the Bentayga is as regal and ridiculously opulent as ever, with acres of top-quality swathed across almost every visible interior surface – and those few that aren’t covered in animal hide are agleam with highly polished wood veneer or metal.

On its introduction, the front end of Bentley’s SUV housed a twin-turbocharged 6-litre W12, whose 600 horsepower and 900Nm of torque were responsible for performance verging on the unbelievable – or at least for a vehicle weighing considerably more than a couple of tonnes. However, with a combined 443bhp and 700Nm from its V6 and electric motor (the latter is mounted between the petrol engine and the eight-speed dual-clutch gearbox), and
a hefty battery pack that raises the car's weight beyond 2,600kg, the Hybrid’s straight-line performance is inevitably less rapid, though neither its 5.5-second 0-100km/h acceleration time nor its maximum 254km/h top speed can be considered sluggish. In any case, focusing on outright performance does rather miss the point.

As a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), the Bentayga’s battery is considerably larger than a normal hybrid (HEV)’s and permits a greater electric-only range – in this case, it’s around 40km, which is perfectly adequate for average daily urban use. Unlike a regular HEV, though, a PHEV’s battery can’t be completely charged while being driven, so the Bentley requires plugging in for a couple of hours or so to top up with the full whack of electrons – much as if it were a fully electric vehicle. The beauty is that it can theoretically be driven in town every day without using a drop of gas, but won’t leave you with range anxiety on longer journeys; the downside, of course, is in the emissions produced when the combustion engine cuts in.

On the whole, the Bentayga’s hybrid system works well, with three drive modes – from “EV” to “Hold” – and a further menu of “Comfort”, “Sport”, “Bentley” and “Custom”, which match the settings on a normal petrol-powered car; all can be selected via an elegant console-mounted dial. Driven on electric power only, the SUV accelerates smartly and drives even more silently than any self-respecting Bentley should; theoretically, it can reach speeds in excess of 130km/h without the assistance of gasoline, though in practice you’ll be drawing on the V6’s extra punch long before that – and especially on hills, where electricity simply isn’t up to the job. Yet when the battery is close to depletion and the V6’s relatively meagre 300-odd horses are doing most of the work, the engine’s limitations in terms of noise, smoothness, pulling power and fuel economy become hard to ignore. In other words, the Bentayga Hybrid is at its most refined best when it isn't being hurried, and driven thus – as a large, relaxed and extremely spacious luxury cruiser – it's very refined indeed.

To sidestep some of the compromises that inevitably result from its complex powertrain, Hybrid mode features a clever energy-saving function working in tandem with the sat-nav, which plots any given journey and decides how best to utilise electricity or petrol, even showing how well you’re doing on a real-time display. Obviously for the most economical results you won’t be exercising the V6 too energetically, but then nor do the car’s additional weight and the absence of active roll bars (which obviously has a negative effect on handling and body control) offer much incentive to press on either.

Indeed, for all its advanced technology, the Bentayga strikes me as a Bentley of yore: a lovely cocoon of beautifully made and sumptuously appointed luxury in which to be wafted from point to point in perfect calm and silence. Treat it as such and, whether your journeys are long or short, it will reward you in abundance. But if your idea of a car with the Flying-B on its flanks is one that gobbles up countries and even sizeable chunks of continents with ease, you’ll be looking at a V8 or even – God forbid in these eco-conscious times – a W12. Because for now, at least, you do have the choice.

BENTLEY BENTAYGA HYBRID

ENGINE Turbocharged 3-litre V6 and electric motor
TRANSMISSION Eight-speed
MAX POWER 443bhp
MAX TORQUE 700Nm @ 1,100-4,500rpm
MAX SPEED 254km/h
ACCELERATION 0-100km/hin5.5seconds
KERB WEIGHT 2,626kg
PRICE HK$3.5 million

The post The Bentley Bentayga SUV is a Luxury Hybrid that Delivers Refined Comfort appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Aston Martin’s DBX must not only bring new customers to the venerable British brand but also ensure its long-term survival – the super-SUV might just manage to do both.

Do you know anyone who doesn’t love Aston Martin? Me neither. The brand embraces so many touchstones of appeal – history, tradition, beauty, elegance, speed, luxury and exclusivity – that there’s no wonder it’s held in such affection. Now that Rolls-Royce and Bentley are effectively ruled from Germany, it’s possibly even the quintessentially British luxury car – and, of course, it’s been the choice of a certain cinematic secret agent for more than half a century.

You might reasonably imagine that, with such a well of positives and goodwill to draw from, the story of Aston Martin would have been an uninterrupted timeline of success and achievement. Not so. Because instead of speeding smoothly across the automotive landscape for almost 110 years, Aston has lurched perpetually from one crisis to another, enrapturing investor after investor and then, just as reliably, exasperating them until another saviour could be found (which there’ve been in surprising numbers).

Perhaps most notable among the latter were the British industrialist David Brown – his name lives on in the brand’s DB model nomenclature – who soldiered on for 25 years before throwing in the towel, and a petroleum tycoon with the unfeasibly comic-book name of Victor Gauntlet. Even the giant Ford Motor Company gave up after 20 years, leaving as its legacy a high-tech production site in the British Midlands, and a V12 engine whose basic architecture combines a pair of more humble V6s and is still in use today.

There’s a famous joke in the wine industry that goes thus: Question: How do you make a small fortune? Answer: Start off with a big one and buy a winery. Substitute “Aston Martin” for “winery” and you have the automobile equivalent.

The latest incumbent in the role of rescuer, however, is the Canadian entrepreneur Lawrence Stroll – a man who, along with his Hong Kong partner Silas Chau, is already famous in this part of the world for making gazillions through his investments in the rag trade. Although passionate about motor cars, Stroll is clearly neither blind nor a fool – and perhaps, just perhaps, he’s arrived at precisely the right time for his input to make a difference.

That’s not necessarily due to what the Canadian has brought to the table, but because last year saw the long-awaited launch of an entirely new model. Called the DBX, it’s the first SUV to wear the Aston Martin wings on its nose and, with its combination of cachet, rarity and luxury, it could well turn out to be exactly what the moneyed elites in the States, the Middle East and China – whose appetite for posh wheels that are both high and mighty remains undiminished – are looking for. And if it’s good enough and sells as it’s supposed to, the DBX could be the key not only to profitability but also the company’s long-term survival.

Now as a sports car buff, you may loathe the notion of an Aston SUV, but when you look at it as a business proposition it could hardly make more perfect sense – just think of the runaway success of such luxo-trucks as the Rolls-Royce Cullinan, Bentley’s Bentayga, the Lamborghini Urus and Porsche’s Cayenne, all of which are coining it in for their respective manufacturers. Even long-time SUV hold-out Ferrari now finds the idea irresistible: next year it unveils its own “FUV”, the Purosangue.

And if the presence of a super-SUV is what the punters want, the DBX delivers it in shovelfuls. Although in photographs it appears compact and almost toylike, as if an Aston sportscar had been compressed lengthwise, forcing the bonnet and rooflines upwards, in the metal it’s positively enormous, towering over the road on its massive 22-inch rims with all the heft and bearing of an armoured personnel carrier, albeit one that’s unusually curvaceous and sleek. It may not be the most handsome AM ever built but as an SUV it’s not bad looking at all, its best aspect being frontal, from which viewpoint it’s also most evidently a proper Aston.

Aluminium is widely used in the car’s construction, meaning relative lightness – it weighs around 2.3 tonnes – and rigidity. For the powertrain, Aston Martin turned to its partner Mercedes-AMG, whose exemplary 4-litre turbo V8 has been further tweaked at the British factory to produce upwards of 540bhp and a peak 700Nm of torque from 2,200rpm, which it does with characteristically woofling tunefulness. The nine-speed gearbox is also Mercedes- sourced, as are the comprehensive suite of drive modes, the infotainment system and cockpit furniture, much of which will be familiar if you’re used to recent Benzes. And, frankly, there’s nothing wrong with any of that (both the Bentley and the Lambo are based on the Porsche, which in turn is essentially a heavily re-worked Audi).

Although neither as lavishly appointed nor quite as spacious as, say, the Cullinan’s, the DBX’s interior is nonetheless properly luxurious, stylish and modern in conception, superbly finished and extremely comfortable, both in the front or the back. The bench seat in the rear theoretically offers space for three passengers, though on longer journeys you’d be better off with two. My car’s cabin is swathed in pungent leather that’s held together with precise double rows of stitching, and it’s all set off with swooping brushed aluminium accents and polished carbon fibre around the console. The view from up here, whether you’re looking out or in, and in whichever direction, is marvellous.

“Standard” drive mode in the DBX is labelled “GT”, which in normal circumstances is the one you want, extracting sufficient revs from the V8 for involvement but not so much that the engine noise intrudes. In any case, performance in this more leisurely setting is surprisingly sparkling, and as the steering is accurate and precise, and the dynamics exceptional for a vehicle of this size, maintaining a rapid clip is an effortless affair. Aston Martin’s claim of a 0-100km/h sprint in 4.6 seconds seems spot on, as does the 290-plus top speed – which, for a car that nudges 1.7 metres in height, is a little hard to get one’s head around.

Even when not going for absolutes this wonderfully responsive drivetrain offers oodles of fun, with point-and-shoot abilities that verge on the breathtaking, while selective use of the shift paddles serves up the right ratio for every occasion, from lazy, eco-friendly cruising to sustained in-gear acceleration. Big cars simply shouldn’t move this fast. And then there’s the car’s agility, body control and composure at speed, the major inhibition to throwing the DBX around on narrow winding roads being its sheer size.

Possibly because the Aston’s chassis offers greater road awareness than other SUVs’, its ride quality doesn’t seem quite so detached or cushioned. On the other hand, thanks to air springs and adaptive damping, nor can it be considered in any way harsh or jarring. To me, the set-up seems an agreeably driver-centric compromise, though as with most modern luxury cars the DBX gives you an almost infinite choice of engine, transmission, suspension and steering settings, so you should be able to settle on a combination that suits your driving style and preferences.

I won’t claim that, were I in the market for an Aston, I’d plump for the DBX. For me, the name will always mean the most beautiful sports cars in the world. But what I will say after an all-too-short acquaintance with this most impressive motor car is that when it comes to taking the brand to new territories, clienteles and market niches, while remaining unmistakeably an Aston Martin, it’s likely to be an unqualified success. That the DBX will fly out of the factory as fast as Aston can build them is a foregone conclusion. I’d even take a bet that it’s going to save the company.

ASTON MARTIN DBX

ENGINE Twin-turbo 4-litre V8
TRANSMISSION Nine-speed automatic
MAX POWER 542bhp
MAX TORQUE 700Nm @ 2,200-5,000rpm
MAX SPEED 291 km/h
ACCELERATION 0-100km/hin4.6seconds
KERB WEIGHT 2,245kg
PRICE HK$3.48 million

The post The Aston Martin DBX is a Super-SUV Success Story appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

It's absurdly good looking and drives great. But there is one thing that holds it back.

The post Test Drive: Jaguar revamps its popular F-Pace SUV for a digital generation appeared first on The Peak Magazine.

It's absurdly good looking and drives great. But there is one thing that holds it back.

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