Bentley's SUV is Approved for Production

The EXP 9 F concept

Bentley first showed its idea of building an SUV was displayed at the 2012 Geneva Auto Show in the form of the controversially-styled EXP 9 F concept. Now, Volkswagen chairman Martin Winterkorn and British Prime Minister David Cameron have declared that the SUV will be produced at Bentley's Crewe manufacturing plant.

They said that Bentley will invest approximately 1.2 billion dollars into the plant and the SUV's production will introduce 1000 new jobs.

Pricing for the new Bentley SUV will be appropriately steep to compete for affluent customers with the upcoming Lamborghini Urus SUV, and upper-end versions of the Range Rover and Porsche Cayenne. The platform is reported to be Volkswagen's MLB architecture, which the Bentley SUV will share with the next generations of the Volkswagen Touareg, Porsche Cayenne, and Audi Q7. Possible powertrains involve a V-8 diesel, a gasoline-electric hybrid, and a twin-turbocharged W-12 gasoline engine.

The new SUV is set to go on sale in 2016. Until then, designers are hard at work generating a more attractive SUV design than the EXP 9 F.

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