Car brand Bentley has revealed the Torcal, its first fully electric car. Ahead of its unveiling today, we spoke to design director Robin Page about how the car balances an electric future with the brand's heritage.
Unveiled today at a launch event in London, the Torcal is a fully electric SUV – the first fully electric vehicle by the luxury car company.
Unlike other luxury car brands – most notably Ferrari and Jaguar – Bentley has not radically overhauled the shape for its first electric vehicle.
According to Page, this was to create an electric car that was clearly modern, but also recognisable as a Bentley.
Page told Dezeen his team began talking about direction four years ago.
"That was when we asked, 'Are we doing a car dedicated to an electric language, or should we do another great Bentley with a more modern language – not directly focused on electrification?'"
"We decided that our best route would be to embrace our heritage and DNA, but in a modern, progressive way."
The Torcal has a long wheelbase with a form that evokes previous Bentleys. Page explained that this form stemmed from Bentley's design principles rather than aerodynamic concerns related to electrification.
"With electrification, what mainly drives the form's language is the aerodynamics and the package proportion – aerodynamics directly relates to range," he said.
"The laws of aerodynamics start to give you quite a moulded form and a certain tail, but we decided that aerodynamics shouldn't lead the design. What's dominated the shape is our design principles, and they are based on our DNA and heritage."
The Torcal takes stylistic cues from previous Bentleys, including a continuous bonnet line, expressed rear arches and a prominent grill.
"Outright elegance, the iconic grill, the endless bonnet line, the resting beast – they're our principles, and we've let them dominate the design rather than aerodynamics," said Page.
Although aerodynamics didn't drive the design, Page highlighted the vehicle's range of 600 kilometres.
The grill, inessential in an electric car, is still clearly expressed.
As with the overall design of the car, Bentley nodded to the past. It referenced the grill of the Continental T, but with a modern twist – it can be illuminated in a diamond pattern.
Page said the team decided it needed a grill and that closing it off would feel "like a hand over a mouth", opting for what it considers an art piece.
"[We] decided to celebrate it, to do a piece of art with light," said Paige.
At the launch, the Torcal was presented in a light, yellowy green, another modern update to the brand's heritage.
"The Bentley green is a much darker, solid green," said Page. "We wanted a colour that showed the form, something a bit lighter, this colour works pretty well."
Inside, the car has a wing-shaped dash and natural materials including timber and Merino wool. It has a modestly sized screen – for a high-end car – and numerous physical dials.
"We didn't want to go down the clinical, super modern material route, because you end up with this quite stark, cold feeling inside," said Page.
"It really captures a place you want to be, rather than something you look at and think, 'that's modern'. It needs to be something that feels fresh, but feels comfortable."
Bentley said its choice to make its first electric car an SUV will open up a new market and offer something that other luxury car brands are not doing.
"The reason we're all doing SUVs is that it's a growing market," he said. "We've had a lot of comments from customers who say they could use this Bentley every day."
When it goes on sale later this year, the Torcal will be the first Bentley to feature the brand's redesigned logo, which was revealed last year.