Bentley W12 to be retired in April next year

Bentley has confirmed its formidable 6.0-litre twin-turbo W12 engine will be permanently retired in April next year when final customer deliveries of the limited-run Bentley Batur take place.

The decision to axe the famously torque-rich powerplant comes as part of Bentley’s Beyond100 strategy, which will see the British luxury brand offer only electric vehicles by 2030.

Bentley has previously announced that on the way to selling only EVs from next decade, its entire model range will comprise only plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) by 2026, and the latest announcement now means only V6 and V8-powered vehicles from April 2024.

None of this comes as much of a surprise given the ever-tightening emissions regulations being faced by auto manufacturers and the fact the Volkswagen Group’s W12 engine can trace its roots back more than two decades – before CO2 legislation went into overdrive.

The first W12-powered production car was the 2001 (D2-series) Audi A8 limousine, before a turbocharged version appeared in the Bentley Continental GT (from 2003), Continental Flying Spur (2005) and Bentayga (2015), and the VW Phaeton (2004) and Touareg W12 (2005).

“Our progressive journey towards sustainable luxury mobility means making changes to every area of Bentley Motors,” said Adrian Hallmark, the chairman and chief executive of Bentley, the world’s largest producer of 12-cylinder engines.

“When we first launched the W12 back in 2003, we knew we had a mighty engine that would propel both our cars and the brand forwards at speed.

“20 years and more than 100,000 W12s later, the time has come to retire this now-iconic powertrain as we take strides towards electrification – but not without giving it the best send-off possible, with the most powerful version of the engine ever created.”

The force-fed 6.0-litre will go out with a bang next year under the bonnet of the aforementioned Bentley Batur, of which just 18 examples are being built, each developing 544kW/1000Nm.

Durability testing of this final iteration has just wrapped up ahead of the Batur’s ‘bulk’ production run, which will eventually end in April next year.

But while the £1.98 million ($A3.5m) Batur is sold out, executives say there are still a few production slots left for the flagship Speed versions of the Continental GT, Flying Spur and Bentayga, as well as the Continental GT Mulliner and Flying Spur Mulliner, which all feature the same engine – albeit detuned to 485kW/900Nm and 467kW/900Nm respectively.

The W12 production line will eventually be repurposed to expand production of the existing twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 and 3.0-litre V6 hybrid powertrains, while the 30 or so staff responsible for its construction will be redeployed within the business.

“The 750ps titan that Mulliner has created for the Batur marks the end of a development journey of which our engineering and manufacturing colleagues should be extremely proud, and when production finishes in April next year we aim to retrain and redeploy all of the skilled craftspeople who still build each engine by hand,” Hallmark said.

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