Hold on to your hats: Bentley will start selling a sport utility vehicle in 2016, and it already has 4,000 buyers lined up.
According to Bloomberg's Benjamin Katz and Christoph Rauwald, this won't be just any old SUV, either.
This will be the ... yes, the Bentley of SUVs.
Katz and Rauwald quoted Bentley chief Wolfgang Duerheimer on this impending piece of impeccable Anglo-German automotive engineering (Bentley is based in England but owned by Volkswagen).
“The Bentley SUV will be the most exclusive, most luxurious and most expensive SUV in the world,” Duerheimer said. “The level of luxury will be extraordinary.”
Bentley has been talking about making an SUV for several years. It teased the market with a concept design back in 2012.
But now concept is turning into reality.
In the luxury-auto market, product-side innovation on in the last decade has essentially been a story of innovation in SUVs.
Porsche created the Cayenne, much to the horror of brand purists. Everyone is just waiting for Ferrari to enter the fray — a once-impossible move that may happen now that Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Ferrari parent Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and new boss of the brand, has expressed a desire to see the marque sell 3,000 more vehicles each year (it moves only 7,000 now).
With Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Lexus, and Cadillac all building lots of SUVs, it only makes sense for Bentley to fill this gap in its portfolio.
Bentley hasn't failed to deliver stupendous luxury in the past, so don't expect the Bentley SUV to disappoint.
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