There’s plenty of art to be found inside the Flying Spur… as well as some controversy.
The latter is that the signature ‘bulls-eye’ air vents have gone, replaced by more sculptural designs, highlighted by what look like bezels encrusted with diamonds. The new vents are Bentley director of design, Stefan Sielaff’s favourite interior detail, but for the interior design team leader, Brett Boydell, they were quite a challenge.
“When I went into a design review and said ‘I want to get rid of the bulls-eyes’, there was a stunned silence,” he says.
“I told the team to create a sculpture, not an air vent. I said we’ll get it to flow air later.”
That was the start of a task that took three-and-a-half years to complete. A lot of that time was taken in writing a new algorithm for the diamond-engraving software so that the bezels would appear encrusted in the precious stones.
“The 3D effects (of leather and wood panels fitted to the dash, centre console, and door cards) are a further reason that some engineers no longer want to talk to me,” admits Boydell with a smile.
The wood was relatively easy – just carve it that way from a solid block. However, getting leather to conform to a shape that matches the diamond-quilting of the seat upholstery required the development of an entirely new patented process.
“I wanted Flying Spur customers to continue to be surprised by some of the details after they’d owned the car for months,” says Boydell, pointing out the knurled finish carved into the back of the control knobs by way of example.
“That little touch means those knobs now cost us three times as much.”
An optional glass-to-glass panoramic sunroof allows the new Flying Spur to have relatively small side windows, as there is no lack of light entering the cabin. It’s as if this luxury saloon has been ‘chopped and channelled’ by some California custom car emporium. The smaller glasshouse adds an impression of strength to the car.
But this isn’t just an impression. The larger body of the third Flying Spur is considerably more rigid than its two predecessors, while weighing in 38kg lighter than the previous body. That’s due to Bentley’s leadership in super-forming, which takes sheet aluminium, super-heats it to 500 degrees, then injects the molten metal into body component moulds under seriously high pressure.
You’ll find super-formed body parts all over the new Flying Spur, including a member of the side structure that is the largest super-formed automotive body part in the world.