A Big Bentley SUV Is Coming, But Let's Hope It's Not As Ugly As This

Steady yourself: Bentley might have just done something terrible. Maybe it’s influence from all the footballers close to the firm's factory in Cheshire, but the announcement has come today that Bentley is to build an SUV.

It’s scheduled for 2016, and the firm’s strong hints are that it’ll be aimed at ‘growth markets’ like China. This is not good news, because we all remember what happened when Bentley showcased the EXP 9F concept last year…

The 9F was uglier than a bottom-feeding fish, much like Lamborghini's foray into the SUV market in the 1980s. The LM002 was as colossal as it was colossally bad, and the Italians canned production almost before it started. In truth they wished they’d done it sooner. Performance car makers and SUVs just don’t go hand in hand. Would you buy a sports car from the people who also made this?

Boil it down and SUVs are for fat, myopic people who can’t get out of normal seats and need the extra height to be able to see the road. This image doesn’t really sit too well next to the newly rejuvenated Bentley brand. The company can’t expect to slide neatly from the genuinely excellent Continental GT V8 to the offspring of the EXP 9F.

On the plus side, we have to doff our industry caps to Bentley’s willingness to build this new SUV at their Crewe plant, creating about 1000 jobs in the process. Good show, chaps. But if it looks anything like this, count us out…