All posts by Francis Mitterrand

News

Bentley Turns the Volume to 11 with the Virtuoso Collection — A Rolling Concert Hall in Champagne Gold

If luxury has always been about silence, Bentley is now making a compelling argument for sound—very, very good sound. The British marque’s latest limited-run offering, the Virtuoso Collection, isn’t built around horsepower, carbon fiber, or Nürburgring lap times. Instead, it’s centered on something arguably more indulgent: the most advanced in-car audio system the brand has ever installed, co-developed with longtime partner Naim Audio and crafted under the bespoke umbrella of Mulliner.

The result? A trio of rolling concert halls wrapped in Champagne Gold accents and stitched together with the kind of obsessive detail normally reserved for high-end hi-fi gear.

A Sound System Worth Building a Car Around

Bentley’s collaboration with Naim spans more than 15 years, but the new “Naim for Mulliner” setup pushes things into genuinely rarefied territory. Originally created for the coachbuilt Batur with a price tag north of £25,000, the system now headlines the Virtuoso Collection across the Continental GT, Continental GTC, and Bentayga.

This isn’t just an upgraded stereo. It’s an 18-speaker architecture augmented by two specially developed drivers, designed to deliver a wider frequency response without sacrificing detail. Working alongside Dolby Laboratories, Bentley integrates Dolby Atmos to create a multi-dimensional soundscape—one that positions instruments in space rather than simply blasting them from the doors.

And then there’s Fraunhofer’s Symphoria processing, which refines the sound stage for each model individually. The goal is less “loud” and more “immersive,” placing passengers inside the music rather than in front of it. Add acoustic Dinamica inserts, redesigned grilles with 26 percent greater transparency, and thick Mulliner overmats acting as sound absorbers, and the cabin becomes a rolling listening room.

Borrowed from the World of Ultra-High-End Hi-Fi

The hardware itself leans heavily on technology derived from Focal’s Grand Utopia speakers—gear that costs more than some sports cars. Hand-wound drivers with patented ‘M’-profile cones promise rigidity, lightness, and damping, a trio that translates to low distortion and impressive detail.

Tweeters built from aluminum-magnesium alloys aim for silky highs, while enlarged midrange drivers increase cone movement by 20 percent, broadening dynamic range. It’s the sort of engineering that suggests Bentley didn’t just want a good stereo—it wanted a reference-grade listening experience at 70 mph.

Champagne Gold and the Language of Music

The Virtuoso Collection’s visual identity mirrors its acoustic ambitions. Champagne Gold accents appear on exterior badges, exhaust finishers, and even the key. Inside, radial embroidery patterns echo sound waves, while bespoke speaker grilles double as design statements.

Bentley frames the collection around three curated “tones,” each inspired by musical registers:

  • Soprano – Light, airy Linen and Gravity Grey hides with walnut veneer
  • Tenor – Mid-tone Stratos and Brunel hides paired with ceramic Dinamica
  • Bass – Darker Gravity Grey and Beluga hides with black crown-cut walnut

Of course, Mulliner’s co-creation program means buyers can remix the theme entirely—because nothing says exclusivity like tuning both your interior palette and your frequency response.

The Luxury Arms Race Moves to Audio

Available now on the Continental GT, GTC, and Bentayga—with the Flying Spur joining later—the Virtuoso Collection underscores a shift in how ultra-luxury brands define excess. Horsepower is easy. Touchscreens are everywhere. But turning a cabin into a concert hall? That’s harder—and far more Bentley.

Pricing remains “on request,” which in Bentley-speak means: if you have to ask, you probably can’t hear it anyway.

Source: Bentley

News

Lamborghini Clears €3 Billion Again—Hybrid Hypercars Keep the Bull Charging

If you needed proof that electrification doesn’t dull the edge of Italian excess, look no further than Automobili Lamborghini’s latest financial flex. The Sant’Agata-based supercar maker just closed 2025 with €3.20 billion in revenue—its second straight year north of the €3 billion mark—alongside 10,747 deliveries. In a world of tariffs, currency swings, and economic uncertainty, that’s less “weathering the storm” and more blasting through it at 200 mph with the V-12 screaming.

Operating income came in at €768 million with a 24-percent margin—down slightly, but still the sort of profitability that keeps the luxury sector nervously checking its mirrors. According to CEO Stephan Winkelmann, the company’s secret sauce is discipline mixed with product focus. Translation: build outrageous cars people can’t resist, and the spreadsheets will follow.

Tariffs and exchange-rate turbulence nibbled at the bottom line, but Lamborghini countered with a stronger product mix and tight cost control. The shift toward hybridization—part of the company’s Direzione Cor Tauri roadmap—also brought one-time costs. Yet the brand’s strategy remains clear: hybrid now, full electric later, no compromise on theatrics.

And theatrics matter. The plug-in V-12 Lamborghini Revuelto is gaining traction, while the hybridized Lamborghini Urus SE continues to mint money. Meanwhile, the incoming Lamborghini Temerario—with a new powertrain revving to 10,000 rpm—promises to keep the brand’s signature drama intact. That’s a number that sounds more like a superbike than a production car, and exactly the kind of detail Lamborghini fans expect.

Customization is also fueling the bottom line. Lamborghini says 94 percent of buyers tweaked at least one detail through its Ad Personam program. That means nearly every car leaving Sant’Agata Bolognese is effectively a one-off—proof that when customers spend six or seven figures, they want their own shade of outrageous.

Deliveries topped 10,000 units for the third consecutive year, confirming demand for Lamborghini’s now fully hybridized lineup. It’s a transformation that might have sounded sacrilegious a decade ago, yet the company insists it hasn’t diluted its DNA of emotion, noise, and excess.

Looking ahead, Lamborghini plans to roll out further updates in 2026, with debuts expected at headline-grabbing venues like the Goodwood Festival of Speed and Monterey Car Week. Those stages aren’t just for show—they’re where the brand demonstrates that sustainability and spectacle can share the same stage.

In other words, Lamborghini isn’t slowing down—it’s just plugging in before the next launch.

Source: Lamborghini

News

Audacious Automotive Reinvents the Quattro

If you’re the sort of enthusiast who thinks the best ideas from the 1980s were quietly abandoned in favor of touchscreens and torque-vectoring algorithms, then this one’s going to hit you right in the chest. The Audi Quattro—the box-flared, rally-bred icon that defined all-wheel-drive performance—is back. Sort of. And it’s angrier, louder, and packing a supercharged V8.

This isn’t a skunkworks project from Audi, though. Instead, it comes from a British startup with a name that sounds like it belongs on the back of a Le Mans prototype: Audacious Automotive. Their mission? Answer a question nobody at Ingolstadt ever officially asked: What if the Quattro never died?

A Quattro That Time Forgot

At the center of it all is Mac Zaglewski, a sculptor and restorer who clearly doesn’t believe in half measures. His creation isn’t a restomod in the usual sense. It’s what he calls a “continuation”—a parallel-universe Quattro that evolved naturally into the modern era.

Underneath the retro skin sits the bones of a Audi RS4 B7. That means a proper mechanical setup: a longitudinal engine, a rear-biased Torsen all-wheel-drive system, and—crucially—a manual gearbox. In other words, everything that modern performance cars have been quietly abandoning.

And yes, the engine. The original Quattro’s warbling five-cylinder turbo is gone, replaced by a 4.2-liter V8. Not just any V8, but one that’s been force-fed a supercharger to deliver a claimed minimum of 600 horsepower. That’s nearly 200 more than the donor RS4 and about three times what early Quattros were working with. Progress, it seems, has its perks.

Analog Soul, Modern Backbone

Zaglewski’s rejection of newer platforms like the Audi RS3 says a lot about what this car is trying to be. The RS3’s Haldex-based, front-biased all-wheel drive and automatic-only setup simply don’t fit the brief. This project is about tactility—about the kind of mechanical conversation between driver and machine that’s increasingly filtered out in modern cars.

The RS4 platform, by contrast, offers a sweet spot: modern rigidity and composure, but with an old-school feel. It’s the kind of chassis that still expects you to do some of the driving yourself.

Lighter, Wilder, Meaner

Visually, the car leans heavily into its rally heritage, taking cues from the outrageous Audi Sport Quattro S1. Expect swollen arches, aggressive ducting, and a stance that looks ready to attack a gravel stage at full boost.

And those ducts? They’re not for show. Every intake and opening serves a purpose, feeding air where it’s needed for cooling and performance. Form follows function here, just as it did in the Group B era.

The body itself is a mix of steel and aluminum for the first commission, with carbon fiber planned for future builds. The result is a weight saving of at least 250 kilograms compared to the RS4 donor. Combine that with the extra power, and you’ve got a car that should feel explosively quick in a way the original Quattro could only dream of.

Built, Not Manufactured

Each car will be individually commissioned, starting at £350,000—and that’s before you even supply the donor cars. It’s an eye-watering number, sure, but this isn’t a production car. It’s coachbuilt, bespoke, and deeply engineered.

There’s also the small matter of sacrificing classic Quattros to make it happen. Zaglewski is quick to point out that they’re not tearing apart pristine examples. Instead, they’re rescuing cars that would otherwise require unrealistic levels of restoration—giving them a second life rather than a slow death.

What Audacious Automotive is building isn’t just a tribute. It’s a philosophical argument on four wheels. In an era where performance is increasingly defined by software updates and drive modes, this reborn Quattro doubles down on something more elemental: mechanical depth, driver involvement, and just enough madness to make it all worthwhile.

It may not be an official continuation, but in spirit? This might be the Quattro that never stopped evolving.

Source: Autocar