While Bentley has flirted hard with hybrids and produced one of their most compelling drivers ever with the gas/electric Continental GT Speed, the British carmaker has slowed its roll on EVs… until now. The just-unveiled EXP 15 hints at the brand’s long-awaited entry into the fully electrified space, and it’s as much a design moonshot as it is an agitator along the lines of Jaguar’s internet-exploding Type 00.
Wearing a broad, tall, and monolithic face, an expansive wheelbase, and a sculpted tail whose shapely haunches belie the two-dimensionality of the Jag design, this battery-powered Bentley concept presents a surprisingly controversial and pleasantly unexpected answer to the question many have been afraid to ask.
Unlike Bentley’s former stablemates and now rivals, Rolls-Royce, which leaned on a familiar design language to create the Spectre EV, which offers a quantum leap into a space that purportedly leans on the past with an oblique homage to the 1930 Bentley “Blue Train” Speed Six, while embracing radical details like an LED-backlit grille that recalls seat quilting, a spacious 3-seat cabin that offers an ultramodern take on the Blue Train’s triple occupancy interior, and an overall exterior proportion that feels like a hallucinogenic vision of a limousine-like super touring crossover.
The EXP 15 counters its avant-garde styling and all-wheel drive electrified drivetrain with old school touches, including a passenger seat that swivels and extends for easy egress. While the Pallas Gold exterior paint is modernist in tone, its golden white highlights are said to have been inspired by nickel components like the grille and door handles on the Speed Six. The rear of the cabin features silk jacquard textiles woven by Gainsborough, a fabric supplier that supplied the Queen from 1980.
3D-printed titanium surfaces are balanced out by thorn-proof wool by Fox Brothers, who have been In business for 250 years. Though the interior incorporates techy lighting and virtual reality software to help customers envision configurations, it also shuns a fully touchscreen-based user interface and relies on knurled wheels and physical buttons.
The arrival of the EXP 15 follows a period when Bentley wisely postponed their entry into the premium EV segment while high-dollar competitors like the Spectre faltered. We’ll see how far the production version departs from the EXP 15’s bold vision; until then, there’s no accusing Bentley designers of taking no risks.
Source: Bentley
