► Bentley reveals wild new EXP concept
► Draws inspiration from its 1930’s racers
► But what is that grille!
Just when you thought Jaguar’s Type 00 concept was the most controversial concept car of the last 12 months, Bentley comes along with this – the EXP 15, a ‘luxury vision concept’ that will help to showcase its first EV due to launch in 2027.
Drawing inspiration from Bentley’s 1930s ‘Blue Train’, it’s the first car designed under the watchful eye of the firm’s relatively new design director Robin Page. He has definitely made his mark, twisting the classic lines of recent Bentleys to create what is possibly its boldest and bravest car in decades, and deliberately so.
It’s frankly impossible not to discuss that grille. Crewe’s models have not exactly been known for their subtlety, but the big, brash rectangle that is the EXP 15’s front nose is the centre point.
EVs don’t need grilles, and it’s a design element that manufacturers continue to struggle with. With the EXP 15, Bentley calls the EXP 15’s front an ‘iconic grille’, and says that despite the transition to an EV, it’s important to the ‘brand’s historic vehicle architecture’. and specifically one of its most famed models, the 1930 Bentley Speed Six, nicknamed the ‘Blue Train’.
Robin Page said: ‘Grilles used to be all about getting air to the combustion engine through the front of the car. But now, with light technology changing, we have an opportunity to create a piece of digital art. So the grille stays as our iconic front.’
Want to know what the wider CAR team make of it? Read our opinion piece on the Bentley EXP 15
It’s not the only detail that is inspired by the Blue Train, with the long bonnet and rearward cabin also shared. The sloping rooflines of the two cars aren’t too dissimilar, either.
The Blue Train is the nickname for the 1930 Bentley Speed Six Gurney Nutting Sportsman coupe, which gets its name from a race where then-chairman Woolf Barnato raced against a blue express train from Cannes to Calais. The story goes that Barnato and his Bentley arrived in London before the train had even got to the north of France.
The EXP 15’s rear is undoubtedly prettier than its front, with huge wraparound C-shaped lights, while there are twin active spoilers that deploy from the end of the car’s sloping roofline. Active aero also appears with lower sections of the car at the front and rear able to open and close, all done in the name of maximising the electric driving range.
Did three seats pique your interest? Well, you’re not alone. But it’s not like a van, nor a McLaren F1 in a seating arrangement, but rather a ‘1+2’ layout, which Bentley says ‘affords greater luxury’. We’ve all seen the S-Class’s and 7 Series’ of this world travelling around with the front passenger seat flung as far forward as possible to enable more legroom for those in the back, so it makes perfect sense. Worth noting that the ‘Blue Train’ also had three seats.
Twin coach doors and part of the panoramic roof also open upwards to make it easier to get in and out of, while the rear seat on the passenger side swivels.
‘The seat can rotate and you step out totally unflustered, not trying to clamber out of the car like you see with some supercars,’ said Darren Day, head of interior design at Bentley.
‘You just get out with dignity and the Instagram shot is perfect. If you look at the car we built for Her Majesty the Queen, it was always designed around the aperture of the door and ‘the art of arrival’.
So there you have it, as suitable for royalty as it is an influencer in Monaco.
The passenger side seat can also be slid into a more normal ‘co-pilot’ position and also reclined fully in ‘Relax’ mode.
There’s storage for, I quote, treasured pets to sit where a normal passenger seat would be, and the boot doubles up as ‘upmarket picnic seating’ with two small seats deployed alongside a fridge suitable for cooling your champagne. Perfect for the polo.
Bentley shot into the headlines last week with the reveal of its new logo, and the EXP 15 is the first time we’re seeing it on one of its cars.
Only the fifth design of its famous B in its 106-year history, the redesign was also led by Page, and all the branding is done in-house – a rarity for carmakers. The Bentley wings are now sharper and more angular, while the ‘tail feathers’ underneath the B have been removed entirely. Bentley says the logo now looks more like a peregrine falcon, rather than a barn owl it did previously.
While this is a design concept, there is tech on it that you can expect to see on a future production Bentley. A fusion of physical and digital features is expected on Bentley’s first EV, channelling the likes of Bentley’s existing rotating dashboard, which alters from a split dashboard when the touchscreen isn’t required.
The EXP 15’s full-width dashboard can be used for various infotainment features or turned off completely to show a veneered wood surface beneath the glass.
Page said: ‘We think people are going to get fed up with a fully digital experience and are pining for physical mechanical elements too. By combining the two, you get the best of both worlds. It’s almost like wearing a beautiful watch on one wrist and a digital watch on the other.’
Bentley says it has conceived the EXP 15 as having an ‘electric, all-wheel-drive powertrain with a long range and recharging speeds commensurate with the convenience customers have come to expect of a Bentley’.
The saloon market isn’t what it once was. We know that, and so does Bentley – it stopped its Mulsanne a few years ago, and the Flying Spur mainly sells to the Chinese market.
The EXP 15 explores what a future Bentley saloon might look like, with a raised body shape that channels the SUV ride height without looking like one. Don’t expect this to appear on Bentley’s first EV, though. We’ve already seen the silhouette of its ‘urban SUV’, which shows a more boxy profile than the lower, sleeker lines of this concept.
Senior staff writer, car reviewer, news hound, avid car detailer.
By Ted Welford
Senior staff writer at CAR and our sister website Parkers. Loves a car auction. Enjoys making things shiny
