PROOF OF CONCEPT
Take a look at the Bentley EXP 100 GT — the seductively shaped all-electric concept that celebrates the brand’s centenary year while exploring how grand touring might be experienced in 2035 — and you might, imagining its creation, surmise the automotive equivalent of NASA engineers planning a space probe. You might picture data analysts harvesting zettabytes of crunched data, then using them to pre-empt and zap every possible glitch into a parallel universe long before they rear their heads; mirror-smooth operations being overseen by white-coated R&D wizards with a kazillion potential variables coursing through their synapses. You might even visualise a stopmotion marketing video depicting this stunning, futuristic vehicle coming to fruition at pit-stop speed without a single mishap.
The actual story is very different — and far more human. For the EXP 100 GT, Bentley collaborated with a host of small, like-minded artisanal businesses around Britain, meaning that the car’s creation was more of a Homeric journey, its twisting narrative overcome with passion and dogged integrity.
Consequently, the spirit of humanity seems to leap from the cockpit the moment you open the door and cast your eyes downwards towards a lavish, high-pile carpet — “British farmed, British spun, British dyed and British woven,” as Bentley’s Colour and Trim Designer, Cathy Bass, points out — with an ombré pattern that graduates from rich brown at the back to cream at the front. “An ombré of more than 1.54 metres is longer than a conventional Wilton loom can handle due to the number of jacquard cards required, but recent investment has seen us computerise one
