Bentley SUV will fill luxury gap

Bentley's chief executive Wolfgang Duerheimer told Carsguide this week that he is "writing the business case and I hope to bring it to the (Volkswagen) Group board this financial year".

Duerheimer has driven the case for Bentley's SUV, which would sit well above the current crop of luxury soft- roaders, possibly to the north of $350,000.

The 12-year veteran of Porsche was research and development chief there for a decade, a time during which the Cayenne came to fruition, revitalizing the brand's fortunes.

"The SUV will be," Duerheimer told Carsguide at the launch of the renewed Continental GTC in Croatia.

"I have been working on this project for eight months. The longer I dive into this the more confident I get thrash this is the right decision. There is no SUV in the Bentley segment, there is nothing above the ($250,000) Porsche Cayenne Turbo S.

"A car which contains the quality, luxury and craftsmanship that Bentley stand for does not exist. A slice of a big cake is possible for us." The German points to Porsche for proof.

"When we proposed the Cayenne the dealers said we were crazy. Our clients said 'we drive sports cars, we don't need an SUV'. Even the media told us we were crazy. "We have sold 50,000 units of the SUV without hurting the sports car business."

While nothing approaching that volume is mooted, Duerheimer suggests an SUV will push Bentley toward 20,000 annual sales of all models. While he says a version of the Continental GT coupe with a bespoke version of Audi's new twin turbo V8 will become e marque's entry car, the SUV would at least in part be derived from much humbler models.

VW's Touareg, Audi's Q7 and the Cayenne have such commonality they are assembled on the same Slovakian production line.

"We will not do everything from scratch," Duerheimer concedes. "We are in the lucky situation where Bentley can access all the technology in the group.

"I have design models. Our assessment shows we have a completely new approach to SUVs in the group."