Bentley Bentayga 2016 Review

Bentley Bentayga
Road Test

The Bentley Bentayga SUV is that rare thing – a segment creator. This is the first hyper-luxury SUV and it’s well and truly stolen a march on its opponents from Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini and co. Powered by a turbocharged W12 engine and fitted with a new active anti-roll system the Bentayga delivers an incredible driving experience at an incredible price north of $400,000.

Well it had to happen. Such is the popularity of SUVs these days that even super-luxury brands are getting into the act.

And the Bentley Bentayga is the first of them to be revealed and go on-sale in Australia. At a cost of more than $420,000 (plus on-road costs), the Bentayga is the most expensive SUV on-sale here.

Somewhere under the bespoke and quite handsome exterior are core underpinnings shared with the $300,000 cheaper Audi A7. But we won’t tell anyone if you don’t.

There are many ways the Bentley has been differentiated from its lesser siblings of course and one of the most important is under the bonnet where a significantly overhauled W12 engine resides.

The 6.0-litre twin-turbocharged giant pumps out 447kW and 900 Nm, rushing the Bentayga from zero to 100kmh in just 4.1sec.

Its top speed is somewhere north of 300km/h, and with the aid of cylinder deactivation, idle-stop and a smooth shifting ZF eight-speed automatic transmission, Bentley claims a combined fuel consumption average of 13.1L/100km.

We achieved 14.6L/100km, which isn’t too bad by comparison, but hardly the sort of vehicle Greenpeace is going to be enamoured with.

Petrol-heads are unlikely to be excited by the noise the engine makes either; more of a harsh V6 bark than a heady V12 howl.

Despite that, it really is an amazing engine, with an incredible amount of thrust considering the Bentayga weighs in at more than 2400kg despite the extensive use of lighter alloy panels to clad its 5140mm aluminium-steel monocoque chassis.

You know you’re controlling something pretty potent when it’s trying to wheelspin in third gear at 4500rpm… remembering the Bentayga is a permanent all-wheel drive. Or when you crest 5000rpm and the acceleration goes from amazing to ridiculous. The next thing I expected was the portal to a parallel universe to appear.

The only sports SUV I have driven – and I haven’t driven them all admittedly – that could keep pace with this thing is the Porsche Cayenne Turbo S.

But the good news is the Bentayga is no one-trick show off. The combination of self-levelling air suspension and ‘Bentley Dynamic Ride’ 48-volt electric active anti-roll control delivers an incredibly high standard of ride quality and body control.

Flick the Drive Dynamic Mode dial to ‘Sport’ and the Bentayga simply refuses to behave like a normal SUV; wheel it into a corner and it won’t pitch, yaw or roll clumsily. It stays flat and corners on rails.

Brakes, including massive 400mm front discs with six-piston callipers, are strong and the electrically-assisted steering tuned with care to provide good feedback.

Look, it’s not a Lotus Elise. It’s still a vehicle you have to stop-turn-go rather than flow, but the limits on-road are incredibly high, and certainly way beyond almost any other high performance SUV on the road today

And that’s not all that impresses from the driver’s seat. The interior is swathed in leather, wood and bright metal and assembled at the Volkswagen-owned British marque’s traditional home, Crewe in Cheshire, to an exacting standard. Mostly, it worked well too. Only a stiff gear shift lever caused irritation in the test car.

Then there’s the refinement. An acoustic windscreen, double-glazed side windows and enough padding to fill a Slumberland factory ensures little noise penetrates the cabin from the engine, road or massive 22-inch wheels and tyres fitted to our test car.

And that active air suspension delivers not only inspiring handling, but also can be dialled to provide a really comfortable ride; a heck of an achievement on such massive 285/40-series Pirelli P Zero rubber.

Of course, it’s not only upfront where the passengers are well looked after. The second row is commodious and luxurious with lashings of high quality trims.

In the third row there’s a claimed luggage capacity of 590 litres, but the seat backs do fold down to grow that substantially. Under the boot floor is a collapsible spare tyre. The air suspension also ‘kneels’ to allow a lower loading height.

Speaking of equipment, for your $423,600 you get front, side and curtain airbags, active cruise control, 360-degree camera, head-up display, night vision, park assist, traffic-sign recognition and crash detection and mitigation systems. There are no autonomous driving modes.

There are also 17 paint, 15 hide and seven veneer choices, LED headlights, 10-speaker audio, an 8.0-inch touchscreen with gesture control, a panoramic sunroof, a cooled glovebox, text-to-speech and voice recognition, and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. There’s also a 3500kg braked towing capacity.

Of course, being such a high-end luxury car our Bentayga came with almost $100,000 in options, including an All-Terrain specification worth more than $12,000 that adds four off-road settings to the Drive Dynamic Mode.

Mind you the thought of taking something this expensive and rare seriously off-road doesn’t even bear thinking about, even if Bentley insists it’s fully capable of doing so.

Instead, it’s just the car for driving to that beach or ski resort you have just purchased … as well as prowling the concrete jungle you’re the king of.

2016 Bentley Bentayga pricing and specifications:
Price: $423,600 (plus ORCs)
Engine: 6.0-litre twelve-cylinder turbo-petrol
Outputs: 447kW/900Nm
Transmission: Six-speed automatic
Fuel: 13.1L/100km
CO2: 296g/km
Safety Rating: N/A

Also consider:
Mercedes-Benz GLS-Class (from $116,900)
Porsche Cayenne  (from $107,900)
Range Rover (from $170,400)