Sketches revealed for "the world's most elegant and sophisticated convertible"
Bentley has surprised Pebble Beach by revealing first sketches of a car that should come as no surprise - the Mulsanne Convertible. Previewed to a select audience, the Mulsanne Convertible Concept gives a clear preview of a car that's not yet confirmed but is nevertheless expected to go on sale within two years.
S1 Continental included in sketches
It is exactly what you'd hope: a two-door, four-seat soft-top Mulsanne. No folding roof nonsense here and, judging by the sketches, fewer of the more bespoke details Rolls-Royce includes on this car's key rival, the Phantom Drophead Coupe.
As it's a smaller and sleeker car anyway, it's arguably easier to make a convincing convertible Mulsanne than it is a R-R Phantom. Bentley has already stuck its flag in the ground here by claiming it will be "the world's most elegant and sophisticated convertible". Take that, Goodwood.
The rear haunches are inspired by the Continental GT (plus the S1 Continental Park Ward Drophead whose outline Bentley pointedly includes in the sketches), and the overall design shows Bentley can still do elegant simplicity after the 'surprise' of the EXP-9F. It even looks neat with the roof up: we wonder if Bentley will able to engineer such voluminous C-pillars into the production version - it will, of course, be an enormous roof...
Powerboats a design influence
Expect the interior, already a delight in the current Mulsanne, to be even richer and more statesmanlike. It's going to be yet another posh car that's inspired by powerboats, according to the briefing material, so expect Bentley to show off yet again why its in-house wood shop is better than Rolls'.
But while it will be sold here, the Mulsanne Convertible won't really be a car for us Brits. As chairman and CEO Wolfgang Durheimer said: "The Convertible Concept will extend the appeal of the Mulsanne family, while enhancing the profile of the Bentley brand, particularly in new and emerging markets."
Make that super-rich emerging markets: we fully expect the base price to easily top £250,000.
The preview of the Mulsanne Convertible is actually one of Durheimer's final tasks at Bentley before he moves over to head up Audi R&D. The former Porsche man starts on September 1: seeing the Mulsanne Convertible project (and the EXP 9F!) through to completion will be new Bentley CEO Dr Wolfgang Schreiber. He joins from Volkswagen's CV division, but don't worry: before that, he was MD of Bugatti...
Based on the previous equivalent cars from Bentley this should be fabulous when complete and definitely will be on the shopping list when that Euromillions win comes my way!
Why do designers always draw 24" low profile wheels on concepts?
That's a visual trick all automotive designers do. Most automotive designers use A4 paper to do their initial sketches (only few still use A3s, all most none use A2s anymore), then they will quickly use markers to render the darkest parts of the sketches before put them into Photoshop or similar 2D graphic softwares to 'bring' the whole things together.
Because of the importance of wheels, nowadays (at the end of the day it was the consumers who always change the wheels before any other modification). Designers have to scale up the wheels to make the whole design 'right' for an A4 sized sketch. Whereas, they wouldn't do the same 20 years ago when they sketched on A2 sized paper. And the truth is that even today automotive designers would not scale up the wheel size on their tape drawings. Coz, those tape drawings are either 1/4 scale or full size. When you are doing a large scale drawing, 18" does look like 18". However, if it's a A4 size drawing, sometimes you do need to slightly adjust the scale of the wheel a bit to make it look right.
But, sometimes younger generation designers do sketch wheels way too big (almost cartoonish). I think it's just a phase which has been around for the last 10 years or so. By the way, talking about wheels look smaller on small scale sketches/renderings, those wheels on this Bentley renderings may look like 24" as some of you here may think. In fact, they are at least 40" in scale! That's visual deception for you.
Why do designers always draw 24" low profile wheels on concepts?
That's a visual trick all automotive designers do. Most automotive designers use A4 paper to do their initial sketches (only few still use A3s, all most none use A2s anymore), then they will quickly use markers to render the darkest parts of the sketches before put them into Photoshop or similar 2D graphic softwares to 'bring' the whole things together.
Because of the importance of wheels, nowadays (at the end of the day it was the consumers who always change the wheels before any other modification). Designers have to scale up the wheels to make the whole design 'right' for an A4 sized sketch. Whereas, they wouldn't do the same 20 years ago when they sketched on A2 sized paper. And the truth is that even today automotive designers would not scale up the wheel size on their tape drawings. Coz, those tape drawings are either 1/4 scale or full size. When you are doing a large scale drawing, 18" does look like 18". However, if it's a A4 size drawing, sometimes you do need to slightly adjust the scale of the wheel a bit to make it look right.
But, sometimes younger generation designers do sketch wheels way too big (almost cartoonish). I think it's just a phase which has been around for the last 10 years or so. By the way, talking about wheels look smaller on small scale sketches/renderings, those wheels on this Bentley renderings may look like 24" as some of you here may think. In fact, they are at least 40" in scale! That's visual deception for you.
It also removes the 'non-space' between the end of the rim and the start of the body. It accentuates the body shape more.
Nicely executed drawings but the car is neither elegant nor sophisticated. Vulgar and brassy, more like it: but that is Bentley's idiom today, and it is beloved by Arab and Chinese buyers.
Nicely executed drawings but the car is neither elegant nor sophisticated. Vulgar and brassy, more like it: but that is Bentley's idiom today, and it is beloved by Arab and Chinese buyers.
I am rich and you can drool at this biaaaatttccchhhh! lol...I love this car!
That's a visual trick all automotive designers do. Most automotive designers use A4 paper to do their initial sketches (only few still use A3s, all most none use A2s anymore), then they will quickly use markers to render the darkest parts of the sketches before put them into Photoshop or similar 2D graphic softwares to 'bring' the whole things together.
Because of the importance of wheels, nowadays (at the end of the day it was the consumers who always change the wheels before any other modification). Designers have to scale up the wheels to make the whole design 'right' for an A4 sized sketch. Whereas, they wouldn't do the same 20 years ago when they sketched on A2 sized paper. And the truth is that even today automotive designers would not scale up the wheel size on their tape drawings. Coz, those tape drawings are either 1/4 scale or full size. When you are doing a large scale drawing, 18" does look like 18". However, if it's a A4 size drawing, sometimes you do need to slightly adjust the scale of the wheel a bit to make it look right.
But, sometimes younger generation designers do sketch wheels way too big (almost cartoonish). I think it's just a phase which has been around for the last 10 years or so. By the way, talking about wheels look smaller on small scale sketches/renderings, those wheels on this Bentley renderings may look like 24" as some of you here may think. In fact, they are at least 40" in scale! That's visual deception for you.
