Bentley Bentayga - the designer's view: PH Blog
So what does the bloke who designed the Bentayga think of the PH comments thread that followed our review?
Saying that, they do seem to have a good supply of them at Crewe, not least in the design department. You might think they'd need 'em too, given the response to the Bentayga in the 170 comments in the thread following our drive last week. One I was lucky enough to share with Bentley's head of interior design, Darren Day. And, despite what some of the forum commentators might seem to think, he's a man of sound mind and body, not to mention excellent taste and a thorough understanding of what the people who buy 'his' cars want out of them.
To be honest though having swapped cards and cheery farewells after our day in the Bentayga I was slightly bracing myself when I saw an email from him land, especially given the wailing and gnashing of teeth within the forum thread. But no. This was the same cheery Darren I'd shared a car with, happy to acknowledge the response and seemingly unflustered by some of the more charged - and personal - comments therein. I did recall saying to him on the day the worst PH response you could wish for was indifference. But on reflection did wonder about being careful what you wish for.
But for all the image of arty farty wafting about in roll necks and chunky glasses there is a toughness required in his game. He described as an up and coming designer within Bentley - where he's worked nearly all his professional life - how the first Flying Spur exterior design came down to him and one other proposal, literally split down the middle on a full-size clay. And his lost out. But it's all part of the game. You might put your heart, soul and every working hour into a design for months on end. All for it to fail at the (imagined) Dragon's Den board approval stage. He reckoned on a strike rate of one in 10 successes being typical, underlining the need to be thick-skinned and able to shrug and move on.
His ability to flit between the big picture - incorporating the Bentley 'wings' into the dash architecture for instance - and obsession with details like stitching, veneers and millimetric chrome trims around inset switchgear was fascinating too. The design of the Bentayga might not be to all - mine included - tastes. But it doesn't need to be. So long as it satisfies those of people in the market to spend upwards of a quarter of a million quid on an SUV that's all that matters.
The plane home offered an interesting insight into the mindset of those folk too. The woman sat beside me clocked the Bentayga press pack I was reading and - having seen the cars out and about in Malaga the same day - wanted to know all about it. She was an interior designer, accustomed to creating homes for exactly the kind of folk who'd want a Bentayga parked outside it. And to her Darren and his colleagues had absolutely nailed it.
The Bentayga is not, by any stretch, a pretty car. But then nor is the Subaru Forester I'm eagerly awaiting delivery of. It perfectly suits my needs though and, for all its defiant fugliness, I happen to think it's one of the coolest things on four wheels. Like Darren, I'm entirely happy for people to disagree with me on that score, no matter how worked up they get about it.
Whatever your price point, you can't buy taste!
Dan
Personally I do find the looks 'challenging' but if I was in the market for such a car (I'm not) then I wouldn't let that put me off - this is more about presence, interior ambience and capability, which it has in spades. When you're sitting in it or driving, the exterior appearance is less important - and come-on, it's not that ugly.
I really hope it's a success.
"Design me an SUV with a Continental front, a flare over the rear wheel-arch and that weird bustle at the back that we've adopted as our design signature" seems to have been the conversation with the CEO (but with a German accent and the veiled threat of being fired or sent to SEAT if it doesn't come out well).
Why not make it the next generation, the new face of Bentley? Tidy up some of the dull details of the Continental range and the weirdness of the Mulsanne headlights and make it innovative while retaining all the "Bentleyness" that Darren is proud to have included on Bentayga (and what a name! It's like they used Boggle to come up with it).
I think we all know it's hard to make an SUV look nice in production form (certainly easier as a concept but it rarely translates) and they are often better two or three generation on (Cayenne One was a pig IMO, two is better and Macan better still) but this is such a collection of Bentley design cliches that you just know that somewhere there's a model, even a full size one (that a VW committee rejected) that is really what this car should have looked like.
The F-Pace, is at least a reasonably good looking car.
This is not even remotely beautiful therefore it is purchased by people who need other people to tell them how their houses should look and what to put in it because if left to their own devices their homes would be abhorent.
Essex, Marbella, Cheshire and Premier League car parks.
It's romantic to think that a designers conjure up the most thrilling things they can muster and bingo - job done. But I can imagine that in many cases multiple stuffy suits, accountants, marketeers etc. get their oar in and after multiple rounds of committee meetings something is "agreed" and the designers reluctantly trudge back to their PCs to produce the required compromise. And between then and the motorshows and press days they work hard on a narrative to convince journalists that their design is truly and uncompromisingly awesome. This narrative is maintained through a few model years until facelift mark 2 is released which is apparently 150% better than the original(crap) model.
[Edited to correct multiple crimes against good spelling]
It's like when BMWs find some new weird niche to fill (X6). I tend to go "Well, it's not for me, but I'm sure they know better than me/whingers on the forum what their customers want".
To me, it looks exactly like you'd expect a Bentley SUV to look, for better or for worse. It's going to sell to the same people that buy the Mulsanne or whatever.
Personally, there's no way I'd purchase anything like that - I prefer to be a little more low key. It suits me nicely if people don't look, especially when I arrive at a client site and don't want to be perceived as charging too much -even if some folks would say that's exactly what I do
(ETA: I feel like I'm giving Dan Trent a lot of heat these days, but really Dan - sometimes you don't help yourself )
While the Brooks Stevens designed 1963 SJ Wagoneer had the originality & distinction of preceding the Range Rover as the world's first luxury "Off-Roader" this vehicle is, as to be expected,entirely derivative.
In design terms it smacks of the "Committee" approach taken to design by the German manufacturers today - full of the unwieldiness which comes from the compromises implicit in accommodating senior management's risk aversion.
As a vehicle of low efficiency, older technology and high maintenance/systems support - it is definitely a "marketer's" product rather than an engineer's - not that this will matter a jot to the prospective purchasers.
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