Bentley Flying Spur (2005)

The Bentley Flying Spur, known as the Bentley Continental Flying Spur before 2013, is a full-sized luxury car produced by Bentley Motors Limited since 2005. It is the four-door saloon variant of the Bentley Continental GT two-door coupé.

The Flying Spur is assembled by hand at Bentley's factory in Crewe, England. Briefly, due to lack of capacity at the Crewe factory upon the car's introduction, 1,358 units of the first generation Flying Spur destined for markets other than the United States and United Kingdom were built at parent-company Volkswagen's Transparent Factory in Dresden, Germany. This arrangement ended in early 2007, when all assembly works reverted to Crewe.

Overview
The first-generation Flying Spur was officially unveiled at the 75th Geneva Motor Show in March 2005. It had a 5998 cc twin-turbocharged W12 engine tuned to produce 560 PS and torque of 650 Nm at 1,600–6,100 rpm. Torsen-based permanent all-wheel drive system was standard on the Flying Spur. It can go 0 - 100 km/h in 4.9 seconds, and can reach a top speed of 314 km/h. It also has Adaptive Air Suspension and Continuous Damping Control as standard. At that time, it was the world's fastest and most powerful production saloon.

Sales of the first-generation Flying Spur began in late 2005. During the first full-year sales of the Flying Spur, the number of deliveries exceeded 4,000 units. The Speed model of the Flying Spur was introduced in 2008 as a higher performance variant with revised ceramic disc brakes and tuned to produce 602 horsepower. The acceleration of the Speed model is 0 - 100 km/h in 4.5 seconds, and can reach a top speed of 322 km/h. A total of 1,155 units of the Speed model were produced in model years 2009 and 2010.

Transmissions
The steering column-mounted paddle shifters enable direct access to the six-speed gearbox when the ZF transmission is in "S" or sports mode.

Second generation (2013–2019)
The second generation Flying Spur was unveiled in March 2013 at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. In addition to the W12 engine from the previous generation, a lower-cost V8-engined version was also available.

The "Continental" prefix was omitted; according to Bentley's designers, this was a conscious attempt to take the Flying Spur in a more opulent direction and distance it from the more driver-oriented, two-door Continental GT range (historically, the Continental name has generally been used by Bentley to refer to models of a "sporting" nature). Despite this, the Flying Spur and Continental GT continue to share the same engineering platform.

Third generation (2019–present)
The third-generation Flying Spur was unveiled in June 2019. The car has been completely overhauled and is built on a brand-new platform, resembling the current Continental GT. The front received a new grille with vertical slats, akin to those of Rolls-Royce era Bentleys, while the rear features new taillights that incorporate a B motif. The bonnet mascot is now illuminated at night, electrically deployable, and capable of meeting pedestrian impact requirements. The interior boasts an optional rotating 12.3 in display and an all-new Touch Screen remote that allows rear occupants to control several systems.

Rear-wheel steering is new and is accompanied by air springs with 60 percent more volume than its predecessor. The all-wheel-drive system is also new and uses an electronically controlled clutch pack. Compared to the second generation model, the new Flying Spur gets close to 130 mm additional wheelbase.

Variants

 * Flying Spur First Edition (2019‒2020)
 * Flying Spur (2019‒Present)
 * Flying Spur Azure (2022‒Present)
 * Flying Spur S (2022‒Present)
 * Flying Spur Speed (2023‒Present)
 * Flying Spur Mulliner (2021‒Present)

Powertrains
There are three powertrains available for the Flying Spur: a 6.0 L W12, a 4.0 L V8, and 2.9 L V6 plug-in hybrid, all of which have twin turbos. The W12 variant accelerates from 0–60 mph in 3.7 seconds and reaches a maximum speed of 211 mph. It produces 626 hp and 664 lbft of torque. It is available only on the Mulliner and the Speed Variants.

The V8 variant produces 549 hp and 568 lbft of torque and accelerates from 0-62 mph in 4.1 seconds, with a top speed of 198 mph. It is available on all trim levels except for the Speed and Odyssean edition.

The plug-in hybrid variant uses a 2.9 liter V6 engine combined with a 14.1 kilowatt-hour battery to deliver a claimed electric range of 40 kilometers (25 miles) and a 0-60 time of 4.1 seconds. With a combined power of 536 hp and a top speed of 177 mph, it is the slowest of the three powertrains. It is available on all variants except for the Speed Variant.

The Flying Spur became the only Bentley sedan model after the production of the Mulsanne ended in the second quarter of 2020 without a direct successor.

In March 2021, Bentley issued a recall for a single Flying Spur due to an improper welding process used on the fuel tank.

Flying Spur Odyssean Edition
On 29 July 2021, Bentley announced a special edition of the Flying Spur, as a celebration of the new Flying Spur Hybrid. Dubbed the Odyssean Edition, it features exterior trims and 21" wheels both finished in Pale Brogar. The interior features open pore koa wood and piano linen console, tweed panels and a three-colour hide combination.