Tag Archives: Bentley

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Priyanka Chopra Jonas Joins Bentley

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In an era when luxury automakers are just as likely to trade in storytelling as they are horsepower, Bentley Motors has found its latest narrator—and she doesn’t come from the paddock. She comes from the soundstage.

Enter Priyanka Chopra Jonas, the newly minted global brand ambassador whose résumé reads less like a casting sheet and more like a portfolio of modern influence: actor, producer, author, entrepreneur, and global advocate. For Bentley, this isn’t just another celebrity endorsement. It’s a calculated shift toward something softer, more human—and, arguably, more relevant.

The campaign, dropping this weekend with a longer-form film to follow, leans hard into authenticity. Shot in a documentary style at Sony Studios in Los Angeles, it pairs Chopra Jonas with Greg Williams—one half of Bentley’s recently appointed creative duo alongside Mai Ikuzawa. The result isn’t so much an ad as it is a conversation, one where the car plays a supporting role rather than the lead.

That car, by the way, is the Bentley Continental GT—a machine that, much like its new ambassador, trades on presence rather than noise. It’s there in the film, woven into the background, never demanding attention but always deserving it. Think less “hero shot,” more “co-star.”

Chopra Jonas speaks of craftsmanship the way Bentley engineers might talk about hand-stitched hides or milled aluminum: with reverence for the process. “There’s an intentionality behind every detail,” she says, aligning herself with a brand that has built its modern identity on precisely that idea. It’s a neat bit of symmetry—her world of filmmaking and Bentley’s world of coachbuilding both hinge on the same principle: nothing great happens by accident.

From Bentley’s perspective, the move makes sense. The brand has been steadily expanding its roster of ambassadors, but this feels like a pivot from traditional luxury signaling to cultural relevance. Marketing Director Ben Whattam calls it “a fresh energy,” though what he really means is that Bentley is betting on personality over polish.

And it might just work. Because while the Continental GT remains a masterclass in grand touring—equal parts speed, serenity, and stitched perfection—the real story here isn’t about the car. It’s about the people who give it meaning.

In a segment long dominated by specs and status, Bentley is trying something different: letting the narrative breathe.

Source: Bentley

Story

When Bentley Learned to Drift

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Bentley doesn’t usually do sideways. It does stately, it does fast, and it does opulence at 190 mph with the air of a private club on wheels. But every now and then, even Bentley decides to kick the doors open, light the tires, and remind the world that beneath the walnut veneer lies something a little more feral.

Enter Supersports: FULL SEND—a film that feels less like a marketing exercise and more like a controlled detonation inside Crewe’s famously orderly universe.

The premise sounds like a fever dream cooked up after hours: take a Bentley Continental Supersports, hand it to rally lunatic and professional gravity denier Travis Pastrana, shut down the entire factory, and let physics take a back seat. The internal codename? “Pymkhana”—a cheeky nod to gymkhana, but rooted firmly on Pyms Lane, Bentley’s spiritual home.

What makes FULL SEND more than just tire smoke and drone shots is the absurd level of commitment behind it. Bentley didn’t just tweak a showroom car and call it a day. Engineers went full mad scientist. The electronic limited-slip differential was recalibrated for aggressive early lockup. Stability control? Permanently disabled. Software was rewritten to allow both static and rolling burnouts—because apparently one kind of tire annihilation wasn’t enough.

And then there’s the pièce de résistance: a hydraulic handbrake, grafted into the car’s control system and synchronized with its eight-speed dual-clutch gearbox. In a brand better known for whisper-quiet wafting, this is like discovering your tailor moonlights as a drift coach. The goal wasn’t just power-oversteer—it was precision chaos, enabling the Supersports to pivot and slide through Bentley’s narrow factory roads like it had something to prove.

According to engineering manager Alistair Corner, the mission was simple: take the already formidable Supersports and “turn it up to 11.” Translation—strip away the digital safety net, add just enough mechanical mischief, and see what happens when a luxury GT forgets its manners. The result is less a modified Bentley and more an unfiltered expression of what the platform can do when unleashed.

Of course, Bentley being Bentley, it prepared not one but two cars—because even in the middle of a tire-smoking circus, contingency planning matters. Both were wrapped in a custom livery by Deathspray and fitted with bespoke 22-inch wheels. The hero car even wore titanium skid blocks underneath, engineered specifically to throw sparks like a Fourth of July finale.

Filming took place over three days in September 2025, and it wasn’t as simple as pointing cameras and letting Pastrana run wild. This is still a functioning factory, with gas lines, fiber optics, and power infrastructure lurking just inches beneath the asphalt. Every stunt was meticulously choreographed. Every corner, mapped. Every risk, accounted for.

And then there was the crew—over 100 strong. Camera operators, drone pilots, safety teams, vehicle specialists, medics, fire crews, and even a camera car built from a first-generation Bentayga W12 outfitted with a crane arm. It’s the kind of production scale you’d expect from a Hollywood action film, not a car company’s in-house project.

Yet somehow, against all odds and common sense, it worked. Over three days of filming, with speeds cresting 120 mph and a luxury coupe behaving like a rally car on espresso, the total damage tally amounted to a single broken wing mirror. That’s not just luck—that’s execution.

The final product, released after three months of editing under director Jon Richards, is packed with detail, including a dozen hidden “Easter Eggs” for sharp-eyed viewers. But the real takeaway isn’t in the background cameos or the cinematic polish. It’s in the attitude shift.

FULL SEND shows a side of Bentley we don’t often see—one that trades restraint for recklessness, at least temporarily. It’s a reminder that performance and luxury aren’t mutually exclusive, and that even the most buttoned-up brands can, under the right circumstances, go completely off the rails.

And honestly? They should do it more often.

Source: Bentley

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