Maxima Touring: SFO-LAX

It’s August 2010, and I’m heading to the USA for the annual automotive festivities on California’s Monterey Peninsular, which includes MotorWorks at the Monterey Executive Jet Airport; The Quail ‘A Motorsports Gathering’ at the Quail Lodge Golf Course; the Monterey Historic Races at Laguna Seca; and of course the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance – the world’s most fantastic annual tribute to automobile history!

The trip takes me from Brisbane to Los Angeles, then a short commuter hop to San Francisco. Sounds simple, but co-ordinating and catching the flights, along with the inevitable air traffic delays in American skies is a pain in the backside.

Also, the dreary landscape of the long term parking lot near San Francisco Airport is hardly a location to glamorize an automobile described by its maker as a four door sports car - which is how Nissan North America labels its latest Maxima.

Settling into the bumper to bumper stream of southbound peak-hour traffic on Highway 101, you just get to take in the interior view, and quickly come to grips with the comfort and convenience features in this smart, compact car.

Splitting from the inland freeway to join the fabulous Skyline Drive, we hit the coast at Santa Cruz. There’s time to stop for a Starbucks coffee (yuk!), and study the exterior as we pause by the Pacific Ocean. Immediately the word ‘sculpted’ comes to mind, and this latest version of the US Maxima certainly looks a whole lot more visually interesting than the rather bland version we get Down Under.

In fact the American Maxima is a pretty snazzy-looking car.

Nissan’s Maxima has been its mainstay in the hotbed of the American medium car market since it debuted in 1976, based on the ‘Bluebird’ platform, and in fact was called the Bluebird 810. It was a pretty ordinary front-drive-wheel sedan with a two-litre four cylinder engine, and it was also a pretty ordinary drive too. Talking of ordinary, Toyota’s competitor, the Cressida, was a car that gave ‘bland’ a bad name. Distinguished it was not! However, by 1984 the Maxima featured a V6 engine, and a fresher-looking exterior and interior styling job, but the first serious makeover came in 1989, when it was launched in Europe and Australia.

In 1995 the Maxima in Australia and the USA became a V6 only model, and sales began to increase.

After a number of facelifts engineered in Japan, Nissan North America won the right to redesign the Maxima for its own market, and in 2000 a new model, designed at Nissan’s La Jolla studio in California was born, resulting in two different Maxima model lines. The US model shared its platform with the smaller Nissan Altima and Murano SUV, whilst the Australian Maxima sat on the existing platform, and continued to be sourced from Japan.

The most recent restyle of the US Maxima has been dramatic and well-received in the American marketplace. However, styling-wise it’s a bit of a three card trick. The car sits on the same underbody dimensions, but the ‘sculpting’ of the external panels has given it an apparent greater substance.

It’s significantly wider than the previous model, but the interior package remains the same. It’s not ‘squeezy’, but not as generous inside as some of its competitors, nor its exterior shape might suggest.

However, in equipment terms the Maxima is a class leader. The standard car comes with iPod/MP3 connectivity, SatNav, Bluetooth and a great stereo, with Bose speakers. The transmission is one of the best-developed CVT types I’ve tested, and the Maxima even has steering column-mounted transmission paddles!

The transmission is very smooth in operation, and most drivers would be unaware they were driving a CVT-equipped car. Whilst the change is nowhere near as fast as a twin-clutch type, it performs admirably when driven on the ‘paddles’.

Nissan seems to have achieved its aim, in separating this car from its (mostly) Japanese competitors, and endowed it with a powerful and quite frugal V6, the snappy CVT transmission, excellent ride comfort and passably good handling.

The US Maxima still exhibits more understeer than I’d like, but it’s very responsive and the rack and pinion steering has quite good feel, thanks to a very ‘fast’ steering box ratio.

After taking in the auto festivities in Monterey and Pebble Beach, I headed east along Route 68 and then across to Highway 101 South. This freeway is the main (and most direct) link between LA and northern California. Leaving Highway 101 just north of Santa Barbara I climb into a mountain range, and pass through the village of Solvang, which is one of those backwoods oddities you find sprinkled around the USA.

Solvang is what you might call ‘Little Denmark’ and is populated by Danish settlers who began arriving in America between 1896 and the early 1900s. Solvang was established in 1915, and the restaurants, cuisine, architecture and customs have created a pocket of Danish culture high in the hills of the Santa Ynez mountains.

Using all the standard equipment gear like SatNav, Bluetooth and the iPod connector is easy, intuitive and very welcome - there are no mysteries to befuddle the pilot, whilst concentrating on driving. The drive south heading towards Los Angeles along Highway 154 is just the right sort of road to test the “Four Door Sports Car” and the Maxima did not disappoint. There’s no point comparing this car to a dedicated sports sedan like a BMW 5 Series, or an Audi A5, but the Maxima points precisely, performs well, rides comfortably and inspires confidence.

The suspension is very well sorted, and the secondary ride quality is outstanding for a Japanese-designed car. Rarely have we encountered such an excellent ability to handle small deflections as well as this car does.

Okay, truth is, it’s not a sports car, but who are we to argue with the success of the ad agency’s campaign. The American Maxima is a neat package, well-sorted and we believe is streets ahead of the model Australians have been offered.

Back onto Highway 101 and it’s traffic tailbacks all the way into the northern approaches of the City of Angels. We join US 405 South (the San Diego Freeway) and pass by one of the most significant landmarks in LA today. Just near Brentwood is the fabulous Getty Museum, which opened in 1997, and definitely worth a visit.

On the lumpy, bumpy Highway 405 these are the conditions where the Maxima really shines. It’s comfortable, well-equipped and good value. What more could you want? If it’s brand caché, or European breeding you’ll pay a lot more, so Nissan North America seems to have made its mark with the Maxima.

Patience Pays Off - for Skoda

Can Skoda succeed in Australia for the third, fourth or fifth time? Short answer is, it has already. My prediction is that it will continue to prosper – for a very unusual reason – patience.

When Volkswagen Group Australia (VGA) announced Skoda’s re-entry into Australia in 2007 the new Chief Executive Matthew Wiesner was appropriately evasive about sales numbers, and the figure postulated by automotive journalists was 2,000 units a year.

Matthew Wiesner

The first year saw a modest 900 cars sold, the second was 1300, and in 2010 that number rose to 1700. That’s certainly slow and steady growth, but this has laid an excellent foundation for the future success of the brand. Skoda sells on quality and value, and the message seems to be hitting home with Australians.

It’s a position the Koreans, like Hyundai and Kia, could only dream about. It has taken them almost 20 years to land in this sweet spot of the market, where you can charge a higher price for a presumed ‘cheap’ car! And, get away with it.

Jutta Dierks

So, back to patience. In 2007 Skoda Australia launched into the teeth of the growing global financial crisis. Then-VWA Chief Jutta Dierks and Matthew Wiesner had made the initial commitment to Volkswagen AG in late 2005, so in effect given the turmoil created by the GFC there were no big expectations of a spectacular launch, and subsequent high sales.

Wiesner and Skoda Australia were thrown a lifeline of low expectations, and a period of grace to get the act together. It’s rare in the automotive industry that you get such a holiday from the demand for immediate results. The time has allowed the company and its experienced and energetic CEO to build the product line, the ownership proposition, the brand values, and the modest expectations, uninhibited by a clamour from Wolfsburg for better sales numbers.

Matthew Wiesner forecast in July last year that Skoda could sell 3400 cars in 2011, and in fact it bettered that number by 100 cars. Wiesner says he is looking for a market share of around 2.5% by the end of the decade. That’s still not outrageously ambitious for such a big (volume) division of the giant Volkswagen Group, but it’s in line with the performance to date, and the growing number and variety of models Skoda will introduce from this year on.

Skoda Australia’s market share in 2010 was 0.2% and last year it was 0.3% - so there’s a way to go, but look how the model lineup has changed since launch.

Octavia

Launching in 2007 with the Octavia sedan, based on the VW Golf; and the quirky, but highly practical Roomster, Skoda has added the Superb sedan and wagon, the Yeti SUV, the Scout allroad wagon, plus the Fabia small car - and there’s a good-looking concept car which appeared in Geneva last year, revealing a new design language to flesh out the future range with stylish, contemporary eye-grabbing appeal.

Roomster

2011 Vision D Concept Car

Skoda Australia is showing greater stability than similar-sized markets in Europe (but we know why they’re having trouble!), and with just 10 dealers handling the brand in 2007, there are now 38 at the end of 2011. That number will grow to 47 by the end of 2012, 60% of whom are joint VW dealers. That allows a good spread in the major metropolitan markets, without the marque being over-represented, meaning dealers are not cutting each other’s throats for a deal. Weisner is quick to praise them as being a big contributor to the firm establishment of the brand.

Much of this outcome however must be credited to Matthew Wiesner, who at 42 is a widely-experienced, and very smart operator. He is paying back Jutta Dierks' confidence when she  appointed him to this important brand development role.

His armory is sound, and he not only has excellent credentials, but also a wise head, developing the brand values backed by Volkswagen’s excellence in product development.

1955 Skoda

Since Skoda launched in Czechoslovakia in the late 1940’s (see separate history post), and after many unsuccessful forays into Australia, Skoda today now boasts a sound foundation based on distinctive European values, and advanced technology transfer from VWAG. Treating the re-entry of the marque to Australia like a completely-new brand, Skoda has now launched into sponsorships which link to its European background, as well as integrating with the Australian community.

Skoda Australia sponsors professional cycling, like the Tour Down Under, and if you watch the Tour de France and other European cycling events regularly, you’ll see Skoda support cars mixing it with the pelaton, and this represents a logical marriage for Skoda Australia. The company is also a foundation sponsor for the new Greater Western Sydney AFL team, which is a no-brainer for a company seeking low-cost of entry sponsorship, matched to highly anticipated interest in the performance of a new football club.

Yeti AWD SUV

All this makes perfect sense, and my prediction is that whilst Matthew Wiesner stays at the helm, and VWAG invests in him, and Skoda Australia with confidence and unstinting support, then this brand will continue to build a strong base of fans and owners Down Under. Wiesner wants Skoda’s models to eventually cover 85% of the market here, from Small/Medium, to Compact, to sub-Luxury, SUV and 4x4, and this will solidly extend its reach without overplaying it.

Skoda is mixing it with the established Japanese and Koreans, but given its sensible and patient approach I don’t think its anticipated market share, and sales performance, is in any danger of not being achieved.

Add to this the outstanding design, engineering and manufacturing quality at the heart of VWAG’s model development, and the company is definitely looking good for a solid place in the hearts of Australia’s Euro-centric car buyers, who are demanding value and quality.

Automotive Industry Road Map for Australia

This week’s announcements of Kim Carr’s success in Detroit in obtaining future funding from Ford and GM for their Australian manufacturing activities should probably be applauded. However, like the inevitable Greek debt default, it’s just kicking the stones a few more metres along the road.

Fairfax business journalist Ian Verrender is correct when he opines the Federal and State governments are tipping taxpayers money into a bottomless pit, but he’s a dedicated business journalist.

The Australian’s automotive writer, the respected Philip King takes a more balanced, albeit car industry-centric approach, when he writes that the death of Australian car manufacturing is not imminent, but that it is inevitable.

However, for the 60,000 or so people employed in dedicated car making, and the supporting automotive component parts industry, it is nonetheless welcome news. But those people, and the Federal and State governments need to start thinking right now, about what happens after 2017. Face the fact - after that date we will NOT be able to sustain full-blown car manufacturing. What do we do with all these experienced and talented people?

The governments are right to be worried about job losses, so they need to be developing a road map in concert with the major companies.

Here’s a plan. Last year the authoritative automotive newsletter Go-Auto devoted almost an entire week’s edition to highlighting talented, inventive and visionary Australians leading the technology advances in parts and components. We recognise that we already have those same skills in automotive design and engineering, residing inside the major car makers.

Why doesn’t Australia set itself a course for developing a series of small, niche automotive design, and production companies which could sell their expertise around the world? We have a hotbed of people with vision, expertise and energy who could fuel such a plan.

It is far easier for governments to support a range and number of small, specialist companies developing ideas and projects which would be of use to car companies in China, Japan, Germany, Italy, Korea and the USA, as well as in automotive countries like Brazil, India, Thailand and Indonesia.

Let’s admit that car manufacturing as we have known it since 1950 is going to die, and begin developing the strategies to absorb all these talented people into a globalised, high-tech group of companies creating ideas for future mobility. This also opens up opportunities for schools and tertiary colleges to develop upcoming genii to grow into jobs in this range of companies.

Many years ago in France I uncovered an overt plan between Automobiles Peugeot in Mulhouse, and the education decision-makers in the Montbeliard region, to ‘design’ their curriculums  to ensure the colleges and university turned out graduates with expertise and diplomas aimed at getting a job with Peugeot (or even other car companies). This marriage of needs and training worked fantastically. The car companies got graduates whose talents fitted their needs. The tertiary institutions grew, the car companies benefitted of course, but the community came out a winner too - by offering jobs which, more importantly, kept talented, increasingly wealthy young people in the region contributing to the local tax base.

My plan suggests that we don’t even need to localise this range of high-tech, niche companies in the accepted auto industry towns and cities. Indeed, they could be located anywhere in Australia, serviced by the fibre-optic NBN, and putting a lot of emphasis into an important part of the business community - ‘small business’.

There’s no reason Australian cannot remain deeply involved in the mainstream of the automotive industry of the future, not just in car-making - which we know is going to be dead here after 2017.

Let’s invest in people, and a diverse range of skills, ideas and innovation which makes Australia a really clever country!

LABOR'S CAR INDUSTRY CHAMPIONS

Senator Kim Carr is the latest champion for Australia's car industry of which the Labor Party can be proud. Some may think he's misdirected by pouring so much energy into retaining car manufacturing in Australia, but it's a fact he has worked tirelessly to try and protect thousands of skilled jobs.

Many years ago another Labor senator brought rational debate and innovative solutions to help that same thrust, protecting jobs, by defining a path for car makers which made them competitive and confident about investing in Australia. The man was John Button, and Australia should never forget the important contributiomns he made to this important industry.

Touring: Western Cape, South Africa

There are hundreds of ‘Great Drives’ along spectacular coastline in many places around the world, but one of my most memorable is the drive from Hermanus, along the coast of the Western Cape, to Capetown.

 

In 2002 I headed a North American press group flying in to Capetown for the press launch of the Bentley Arnage T saloon. We stayed at the quiet, secluded and luxurious Grand Roche Hotel in Paarl, close to South Africa’s wine country. This hotel is beautifully decorated, but also very understated and comfortable.

Hotel Grand Roche

After a brief pit stop for breakfast in Frankschoek, we followed the R45 to Villersdorp, joining the R43, and Route 2 to Caledon. We took the R316 and the R320, to Stanford, and then made a detour to the fabulous Grootbos Private Nature Reserve for lunch, and a chance to get up close and personal with some wildlife, including a couple of very curious Ostriches.

Grootbos Private Reserve

Then the driving changed from hilly terrain dotted with eucalyptus tress, and open sweeping roads, to a winding, scenic drive along the rugged coastline.

As we crested the last hill before joining the coast you look west towards False Bay. So named because many early sailors heading for Capetown, mistook the sweep of this bay as the Capetown Harbour, thus the area a few kilometres offshore is littered with shipwrecks from centuries past.

Cape Point

Had they sailed just a few more miles further out to sea they would have rounded Cape Point, and the spectacle of Table Mountain would have confirmed they’d arrived safely in Capetown.

Capetown and Table Mountain

Today the road edges around the base of huge cliffs under the Kogelberg Nature Reserve. Following the R44 past Betty’s Bay, Pringle Bay, we leave the coast at Strand to head for Stellenbosch.

Bentley Arnage T near Kogelberg Reserve

Stellenbosch is the true heart of the wine district hereabouts, and also a university town. It’s a cosmopolitan centre with great restaurants and hotels. We then turned north for a fabulous, mountainous drive along Helshootge Road, to rejoin the R45 and return to the Grand Roche. Then it was time for cocktails, and the inevitable ‘Presentation’ of the new car, with all its associated technical details, sales forecasts and the Q&A.

Hotel Grand Roche

The ‘business’ end of any launch event is a small price to pay for the chance to drive in far-flung and exotic locations all over the world. More about some of the other Bentley ‘Great Drives’ in future posts.

The Fiat 16

Badge-engineered cars turn up in unusual places sometimes, and on a recent trip to Italy I noticed how popular the Fiat Sedici has become – especially with smart, chic, young Italian women.

 The Sedici (Italian for sixteen) is made in Hungary by Suzuki, and about one-third of the production is sold in Italy with either 1.6 petrol, or 1.9. diesel (guess which one is most popular in Italy). It’s a by-product of the original links between Suzuki and General Motors, and then later General Motors and Fiat.  

The car was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro’s Ital Design and launched at the Geneva Salon in 2006, and it’s a really smart looking vehicle. It’s a 4x4 or 4x2 drive configuration (as 4x4 makes 16, that’s why the Italians decided to badge it Sedici).

We know the car in Australia by its Suzuki moniker, SX4. I drove one a year or so back, and I can easily understand its popularity.

Given its short wheelbase it is easy to park, is quite roomy, has acceptable luggage capacity, and the occupants get a nice high driving position with a commanding view of the traffic.

If you’re a young woman doing battle in Italy’s chaotic cities, I can definitely see why this car appeals.

 

As an all-wheel-drive, it’s not in the Range Rover class of off-road machines, but for dashing about at ski resorts, and coping with occasionally rough terrain on a picnic in the Tuscan woods, it’s quite competent.

The Suzuki SX-4 I drove handled confidently and competently and was great around town. On the motorway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast it was stable, quiet and very economical, with fuel economy around 7 l/100km. Not bad given all the drag induced by an awd system, and a less-than slippery shape.

Suzuki has massively undermarketed this car in Australia, and after the success it achieved with the tiny Swift hatchback, I can’t work out why they didn’t put more effort and marketing dollars into the SX4 SUV. It broadens the range, offers something completely different, and is well-priced.

Clearly, young Italians got the message.

The Doc's Domain

When Martin Clunes first graced television screens as grumpy Doc Martin, who could have believed the grouchy, grumbling GP would have become such a popular character? Who could warm to a guy apparently suffering a form of Asperger’s syndrome, whose general attitude seems set to aggravate?

The answer lies in the making of the fifth series, set in mythical Portwenn. However, it seems that the locale for the series might be the real star. Viewers the world over have fallen in love with the village of Port Isaac (the real town), nestled among cliffs on the North Cornwall coast.

Since the show first aired in 2004, visitor numbers to Port Isaac have skyrocketed. Tourists come to check out the pub, the Doc’s surgery, the pharmacy, the school, the harbour, the shops, and the rolling hills that border the town.

Port Isaac’s permanent population is roughly 1,000 people - but in the British summer, the 
population can be three times greater as outsiders jostle with natives to sample some of the magic of
the 18th century fishing village.

British interior designer Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen and his wife were quick off the mark, establishing a shop in the town, and ringing of their cash register almost drowned out the sound of the seagulls.

Another (more commercial) star of the television series is the Lexus LS400, in which Doc Martin terrorises the countryside and frightens the horses. Lexus says it has been a very successful partnership, and so we thought it might be nice to cruise down to North Cornwall in the latest Lexus model, the new petrol-hybrid CT 200H.

Smaller than Doc Martin’s long wheelbase luxury car, this new Lexus is a compact five door hatchback, and adds a third hybrid model to the Lexus lineup. On North Cornwall’s compact country lanes the smaller hatchback also probably makes much more sense as a doctor’s conveyance.

We picked up the test car at London’s Heathrow, and joined the M4 motorway to head towards the southwest. It’s a pretty easy drive, joining the M5 south near Bristol. You leave the motorway at Exeter, and then it’s well-surfaced A roads all the way to Port Isaac.

Whilst the motorways make for fast travel, the Lexus does not return very good fuel economy at a sustained 70mph (Britain’s national motorway speed limit). After just over four and half hours we refueled in the village of Camelford, which revealed surprisingly high fuel consumption figures of 11.5 l/100km for the 250km journey!

The trip from Heathrow also revealed the CT200H might be a comfortable car for motorway cruising, but narrow country lanes showed up its stodgy steering, and quite a bit of pitching in tight corners. After a week of highways, lanes and B roads it’s highly likely this is a car which Jeremy Clarkson would not be raving about.

Having said that, there’s a lot to like about the car. Most important to me, the excellent sound system makes the most of high fidelity from an iPod, and music sampled at a high bit rate.

Lexus introduced the CT200H to the Australian market at the Albert Park Grand Prix circuit in the Celebrity Race. After the silently-whirring petrol-electric hybrids had completed their laps of the race track, Lexus sales people sat back in their showrooms and waited for the orders to come in.

Not so fast! Australian car buyers are shunning ‘green’ cars and it’s highly unlikely a pricey hybrid will make any sort of impact on this ‘no-love’ affair. However, the cheapest Lexus does have some genuine appeal for environmentally-conscious luxury car buyers.

The primary feature set is what will sell this car. It’s quiet, with a great ride, nice seats, smooth to drive, finished like a Lexus, and good value. The price leader is modestly-equipped (how else could you price it at $39,990), so you’ll need to spend around $9,000 to get the full range of luxury features you might expect in a proper luxury car.

On the road it’s willing, but the boot is pretty limiting - we struggled to get two 62cm rollaway suitcases stowed under the removable rear shelf. However, taking a long trip in a Lexus CT200H will be a pleasure, because of low wind noise, good ride and confidence-boosting grip. It's also great for a Pommy pub crawl!

The petrol-electric hybrid powertrain is identical to Prius, in fact the whole platform is pinched from Toyota’s first hybrid, and it delivers no surprises. Fuel economy is claimed to be 4L/100km, but as our drive down Britain’s Motorways suggests, the Lexus doesn’t have a wind-cheating shape, and driven hard (above 110km/h most of the way), it can’t deliver decent fuel efficiency at high speed.

There are four, adjustable, driving modes. You could easily use the EV mode around town, but our suggestion would be to stay away from Sport mode and go for Normal. In Eco mode the air conditioning didn’t seem to be able to keep up with the demands from an Aussie summer. Conversely, a British summer didn’t worry us at all in Eco mode.

Lexus says this model is a vital element of its policy to widen the appeal of its luxury range in Australia, but this car is also incredibly important in the UK and Europe too - where Lexus has, to date, made little or no impact on sophisticated buyers.

However, the beautiful village of Port Isaac made a big impact on me, and I will return one day.

Delivering A Dream

Undoubtedly the most successful British luxury car in recent history, the Continental GT coupe did more than rebuild Bentley’s fortunes. It was a dream, fully realised …..

The main styling studio in Volkswagen AG’s Wolfsburg headquarters is known colloquially as ‘Walhalla’ and is located on the topmost floor of the building. In November 2000 Bentley’s 14 most senior executives gathered there, expectantly, around a full-size clay model, draped in a simple silver cloth.

As the cloth was whipped away, the 14 men gasped, in unison, as they saw their future, represented by the coupe before their eyes. From this initial reveal, to the first production model, little changed from the prototype. The designers’ dream became the reality, which was the Bentley Continental GT coupe, and start of a whole new era for the venerable British car company.

 

The coupe spawned a sedan, then a convertible; and each of those models was used as the basis for other variations, meaning that in total more than 50,000 of the whole range of Continentals have been sold.

Of course, the story begins much earlier than that first viewing in Wolfsburg, and the success of the Continental GT was a story of the blending, refining and moulding of a series of themes, designs and concepts.

Like all good tales this one begins a while back, in the early 90s in fact. At this time the Bentley team were arguing with the current owners of the company, Vickers plc, about the need to modernise the Bentley brand, update the design language and create an identity for Bentley which was very much separate from the staid Rolls-Royce image.

At the time Vickers was working up to selling off the company and didn’t want to spend any more money than was absolutely necessary. In 1997 it had already agreed to fund two new sedans – the Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph and the Bentley Arnage, which would give the company two new cars to help make it attractive to a potential buyer.

So Bentley designer Graham Hull, leading a very small team, on a miniscule budget began to pull together several design ideas into a cohesive concept.

Bentley 'Java'

In 1993 the company had built the Bentley Java concept car, and revealed it at the 1994 Geneva Salon, to great acclaim.

Simon Loasby

However, by 1997 the Java concept had dated, and it was then designer Simon Loasby’s job to further develop the Java design cues, which led to the creation of a concept nicknamed ‘MSB’ (Mid Size Bentley).

MSB Concepts

The Java concept model had been a ‘runner’- in that the designers had simply sliced the top off a BMW 5-Series sedan, and built the show car on that platform. This necessarily dictated all the key dimensions. However, by 1996 the relationship with BMW had fallen apart, and Bentley was on its own.

The MSB concept ideas were defined, re-defined and refined until a new set of design criteria for Bentley– the muscular rear haunches, the four round headlights and the more compact dimensions were born.

In late 1997 an MSB concept with a retractable hard top was shown to various potential buyers for the company, which included Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Then in late 1998 Volkswagen AG won a bitter bidding war and successfully acquired Bentley Motors.

Hartmut Warkuss

In the meantime, stimulated by Bentley’s advanced design work, the VW styling team led by respected chief Hartmut Warkuss had independently developed a Bentley coupe/sedan concept based on Volkswagen’s Ypsilon platform. In early 1999 the design ideas whirling around between the Bentley and Volkswagen teams were distilled into a singular vision.

Dirk van Braekel

Following the Bentley acquisition Volkswagen Chairman Dr. Ferdinand Piech personally appointed Skoda’s head designer, Dirk van Braekel to the job of Design Director for Bentley Motors.

From this time on Bentley Motors began to benefit from the vision, talent and generosity of spirit which resided in both Hartmut Warkuss and Dirk van Braekel. The two men acted as ‘fathers’ of Bentley design work, guiding the efforts of young Brazilian-Italian Raul Pires as he refined and blended all of the previous exterior work into the concept which would become the Continental GT coupe.

Raul Pires

Robin Page

At the same time van Braekel was encouraging talented young British designer, Robin Page, to blend some of the exterior design cues into a brief for a stunning interior.

Dirk van Braekel took the two young designers back to Bentley’s historic heritage. Using both the 1931 ‘Blower’ and the 1961 Continental as thought-starters, the team combined both historic and contemporary themes to create the car we first saw in 2002.

Design development

Simon Loasby credits both the Warkuss and van Braekel for the support and encouragement of Bentley’s work on the Continental range, which later led to cars like the outstanding Mulsanne sedan.

Original Pires sketch

As good it looked, the Continental GT coupe would have to be based on a VW Group platform. Ferdinand Piech was anxious to take advantage of the new engine designs he and Dr. Martin Winterkorn had been developing, like the W12, W16 and a new V10.

In 1999 it was decided that the platform for the planned Volkswagen Phaeton luxury sedan, would be the donor for the Continental GT. This meant that the Bentley would have a 6 litre, W12 engine.

Volkswagen originally appointed Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg to lead the work to graft the Phaeton platform under the Continental GT design model, and he was succeeded by Dr. Joachim Rothenpieler, who brought the car to production stage. However, the man responsible for the ongoing refinement of the rolling platform is Dr. Ulrich Eichhorn, Bentley’s most recent Chief Engineer.

Ing. Dr. Ulrich Eichorn

2012 Bentley Continental GT

To reiterate, the Bentley Continental GT has been an outstanding emotional and commercial success, and has underwritten Bentley’s future security as a high end luxury brand. The restyled model shown in Geneva in March 2011 is, unsurprisingly, another triumph of sophistication, and refinement of a brilliant original concept.

From the first iteration, in 2002, up until the Second Generation was revealed in January 2010, more than 22,800 Continental GT coupes had been sold, making it possibly the most commercially-successful British luxury car since Sir William Lyons’ epic Jaguar XJ6 in 1968.

It has been a singular honour and a privilege to have been associated with this car, and this company.