Bentley’s forthcoming SUV, due next year, will be the brand’s flagship model that shows a new direction for Bentley’s styling, according to the company’s director of design, Luc Donckerwolke, at the Motorsports Gathering at Quail Lodge in Carmel, California. Expect a more muscular and sporty look, with perhaps a lower roof and more surface development around the wheels than Bentley is currently known for, a theme that will filter in one form or another down the car line as existing models are replaced.
Donckerwolke, a Belgian who has tramped around the 12 brands of Volkswagen Group over the years, notably as head of Lamborghini design (he is credited with the Murciélago and the Gallardo) and the chief of design for SEAT, has been sent to Bentley for a few years to overhaul the company’s styling. Of course, he says, the SUV will look like a Bentley. “We are adapting the DNA of the brand to a new topology of car,” he said, “but it’s always good when you do something that the brand hasn’t done before.”
So far, Donckerwolke’s signature “look” has been sharp creases that break up reflected light into edges, like bits of broken glass. “I like really sharp, defined surfaces. If it’s too voluptuous, it’s too sweet. You need spices.” But the Bentley design heritage is softer lines in which the light plays “in an evolution or gradation,” he says. So Donckerwolke’s challenge has been mixing the sweet and spice on the SUV, within the confines of the architecture inherited from Audi.
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Donckerwolke has another challenge: Bentley’s EXP 9 F concept (shown above), which appeared in 2012 and showed that Bentley was pondering an SUV, created divided opinions. In emerging markets such as China and Russia, its blocky, fortresslike look was well received, while Westerners generally hated it. Balancing the desires of different markets is a tough job, says Donckerwolke, but the brand “can’t design for just one market. We are ambassadors of a culture, and we have to look like a Bentley.”
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