Bentley will scrap its 12-cylinder gas engine in April 2024, the company announced late February, after building a final version, its most powerful ever, for use its in new Batur model. The Volkswagen-owned marque said production of the W12 engine will cease after a run of more than 100,000 had been turned out at its plant in Crewe, England.
Chasing a sustainable future for its vehicles, the move is part of Bentley’s Beyond100 strategy, which will see the company’s entire model line fully electrified by the start of the next decade.
“Our progressive journey towards sustainable luxury mobility means making changes to every area of Bentley Motors. 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 forward at speed,” said Bentley chairman and chief executive Adrian Hallmark.
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“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 illustrious engine will anchor all 18 examples of the super-exclusive Bentley Batur, crafted by the automaker’s Mulliner coachbuilding arm. Each of the W12s in those cars will be hand-built by a team of 30 craftspeople over a span of more than six hours. Bentley says that development work on that most powerful version of the W12 has recently been completed. In the Batur, the W12 will boast 740 horsepower and 1,000 ft-lb of torque; its torque plateau runs from 1,750 rpm to 5,000 rpm, with peak power at 5,500 rpm.
The 2023 Bentley Mulliner Batur coupe Photo by Bentley Media
“The 750-PS [740-hp] 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,” said Hallmark.
While all the Baturs have already been sold, Bentley says a limited number of the 659-PS (650-hp) version of the W12 engine offered in the Speed versions of the Continental GT, Bentayga, and Flying Spur – as well as the Continental GT Mulliner and Flying Spur Mulliner – can still be ordered.
Keyword: Bentley to scrap its W12 engine in 2024