Bentley, the British luxury car manufacturer, has announced that it will stop production of its 12-cylinder petrol engine in April 2024. By then, more than 100,000 units of the iconic W12 will have been handcrafted in the company’s Dream Factory in Crewe, England. The decision is part of Bentley’s Beyond100 strategy, accelerating the brand towards a sustainable future with plans to electrify its entire model line by the beginning of the next decade.
Bentley’s Chairman and Chief Executive, Adrian Hallmark, said, “Our progressive journey towards sustainable luxury mobility means making changes to every area of Bentley Motors. When we first launched the W12 back in 2003, we knew we had a mighty engine that would propel both our cars and the brand forward at speed. 20 years and more than 100,000 W12s later, the time has come to retire this now-iconic powertrain as we take strides towards electrification.”
However, Bentley won’t let the W12 go without a bang. The most potent version of the W12 ever created has already been developed and will power the 18 units of the Bentley Batur to be handcrafted by Mulliner.
Bentley’s W12 engine production facility in Crewe, which employs 30 skilled craftspeople to hand-assemble and test every single W12 engine, will be repurposed for the completion of other Bentley engines used for plug-in hybrid models. The company aims to retrain and redeploy all of the skilled craftspeople.
Since the first introduction of the 6.0-liter, twin-turbocharged W12 in 2003, the Crewe engineering team has continually improved the engine’s performance in terms of power, torque, emissions, and refinement. Power has increased by 37 percent, torque has increased by 54 percent, and emissions have been reduced by 25 percent. Each W12 engine is hand-built over 6.5 hours by a team of craftspeople and undergoes a highly sophisticated test regime of over an hour via three specialist diagnostic machines.
The last version of the W12 to be produced will power the 18 units of the Bentley Batur. The ultimate W12 engine delivers a record-breaking 750 PS and 1,000 Nm of torque, making it the most powerful version of the engine ever created. The turbocharger compressors are of a new design to improve efficiency, while the ducts that feed air to them are 33 percent larger.
The new engine calibration and transmission calibration pair with the upgraded intake and turbocharging systems to liberate the extra torque available and enhance the driving experience.
The Bentayga and Flying Spur Hybrid models have already been introduced, and customer demand for these hybrid models has exceeded the company’s expectations. Bentley is retiring an engine that has been powering the brand for two decades, first made available in the sector-defining Continental GT. Still, the company’s entire lineup will be available with a hybrid powertrain when production of the W12 ceases next year.