Autoblog

Click above for high-res gallery of the 2009 Bentley Brooklands

Bentleys and buckets of torque go hand-in-hand. Therefore, it might make some sense for the German-owned British luxury marque to consider one of the VW Group's big, powerful turbodiesels for one of its upcoming models. Not so fast, says Bentley. It has specifically polled its customer base -- made up mostly of Americans and Asians -- to determine if there's any interest in an oil-burning Bentley. Apparently, there isn't. Instead, the luxo-barge company will focus on biofuels in an effort to lower the fuel consumption and emissions of a numbers of its models. As a matter of fact, the first flex-fuel engine from the Flying B is expected to debut in 2009 and Franz-Josef Paefgen, Bentley's Chief Executive, says that all of its models will be capable of running on biofuels by 2012 as part of its plan to go British Racing green.

[Source: Autocar]

Click above for high-res gallery of the 2009 Bentley Brooklands

British racing green could take on a whole new meaning if Bentley is able to achieve its goal of reducing CO₂ emissions by two-thirds to just 120 grams per kilometer by 2012. Currently, all of its vehicles emit more than 400 g/km, no doubt including the 2009 Bentley Brooklands we drove last week, so the company from Crewe has a long way to go. While we'd expect to see some sort of diesel offering, Bentley remains mum on any real details regarding its future powerplants. We do know, however, that the British manufacturer of ridiculously luxurious transportation is holding out hope for biofuels, which post high well-to-wheel CO₂ measurements. When just the tailpipe emissions are taken into consideration, biofuels offer just a little benefit as compared to dino-juice, but when the entire carbon footprint of the fuel is considered, biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel can post significant CO₂ improvements.


[Source: Automotive News Europe - sub. req'd]