Yet Bentley has been closely controlling the delivery of its Bentayga to market, to keep interest fresh: it launched with the W12 petrol flagship version, then unveiled the V8 Diesel, and now it's the turn of the V8, the smaller (everything’s relative) petrol version. At Geneva next month, a plug-in hybrid version will be unveiled, and there’s also the option of a seven-seat version of each powertrain.
The V8 will surely be the version most people in Europe buy, now that diesel is more or less dead, battered to an untimely death by ill-thought-out taxes and needlessly, stupidly punitive EU legislation.
This 4.0-litre, twin-turbocharged engine is really all one needs anyway, either for the Kensington school run or the cross-continental trip to Verbier. Or Kitzbuhel, which is where we drove it, on tarmac and snow, this week. It has the capacity, at partial throttle, to shut down four cylinders, too, which really makes it positively eco-friendly.
From the outside, there are some subtle changes to accentuate the more sporty, youthful nature of a V8 over a W12, and to keep the range fresh. There is a lot of black paint covering silver metal, for a more aggressive look. carbon-ceramic brakes are offered as an £11,000 option for the first time and can be specified with bright red callipers. There’s a funky new 22in wheel on offer and the choice of a glossy carbon-fibre finish across the interior instead of fusty-dusty W12-style burr veneers.
The new 4.0-litre, twin-scroll turbocharged engine, developed with Porsche, produces 550hp (542bhp), which is 58 horsepower lighter than the W12: I’d be very impressed if an average punter noticed any difference in the sublime power delivery. It revs to 7,000rpm, making it Bentley’s highest-revving engine ever, and it gets to 62mph in 4.5 seconds from a standstill, which is only 0.4 of a second slower than the Aston DB11 Volante. Which is insane. In return for a loss of 58PS, you save £30,000 on the price of this model, which starts at £136,200, and that to me seems a very fair swap.