Don’t Expect A New Mulsanne Any Time Soon, Says Bentley CEO

Last summer, Frank-Steffen Walliser left his hometown of Stuttgart, having spent most of his career at Porsche, and made a move to the Cheshire countryside to take over the reins at Bentley.

Walliser arrived at a crucial time for the British marque: it had just launched the fourth-generation Continental, and had become one of the first of what turned out to be a slew of manufacturers from all over the world to delay plans to go all-electric. Its ballpark date for this transition is now some point in the mid-2030s.

Car Throttle caught up with Walliser just over half a year into his new job, having navigated the launch of these warmly-received new models as well as a topsy-turvy new car market, to try and get an inkling of what else we can expect from Bentley in the coming years. One of those things probably won’t be a stately ultra-luxe saloon to succeed the old Mulsanne.

Despite cars like this being part of Bentley’s core business from the very beginning, they’re getting harder to justify, explains Walliser. “We have had a very close look at what is the future of the saloon,” he says. “I’ve had the chance to drive a Mulsanne and it’s a really great car, but we don’t see any growth in this segment. It’s steady and stable… but it’s not growing, and the question is ‘will it really continue?’”

That doesn’t mean Bentley’s given up on the four-door. The Flying Spur is still alive and well, and has just been updated alongside the Continental GT and GTC. The silken W12 engine that used to represent the top option in these models died last year, to be replaced by a plug-in hybrid V8 setup. That powertrain, in 771bhp Speed form, is currently the only choice in the Continental and Flying Spur. Are we likely to see more ‘entry-level’ options, like a non-hybrid V8?

“We will see different variants, but non-hybrid drivetrains, I cannot confirm anything,” says Walliser. If non-plug in versions of Bentley’s latest cars aren’t currently on the way, then, that leaves the Bentayga SUV as the only car in its lineup still available in pure combustion guise.

Now almost 10 years old, the Bentayga is nonetheless a hugely important car for Bentley, and unsurprisingly in our SUV-hungry world, it’s likely to stay that way. “[The Bentayga] nearly doubled sales numbers and helped put Bentley in a different league. We don’t see that the SUV segment is declining; it looks extremely stable… people love these cars. It was not a short-term thing.”

In fact, the Bentayga will be joined by another high-riding Bentley next year – the brand’s first full EV will be a smaller ‘urban SUV’ measuring in at under five metres long. That should help bring in more sales at whatever the ‘lower’ end of Bentley’s market is, but what about the other end of the scale, populated by limited-run ‘coachbuilt’ cars like the Bacalar and Batur? These were conceived under previous CEO (and now Aston Martin boss) Adrian Hallmark’s tenure, and they might not be as frequent under Walliser:

“It’s definitely a very interesting market,” he says. “Would we see [more] immediately? No, I don’t think so. These cars come on the market, they have their time, then there has to be a break, and then you offer something again… it depends on timing and on the content of the car.”

Finally, the motorsport question has to be asked, given the recent influx of manufacturers to both F1 and the new LMH and LMDh rules in endurance racing. With Bentley’s Le Mans heritage, and Walliser’s experience – in the 2000s, he was head of Porsche’s motorsport strategy – would he like to see a return?

“Would I like to see that? Yes. Where is it on the priority list? It’s not on the top spot. To manage the transition to electric cars, the investment we have to make is huge. Top priority now is the new generation of cars. We have a lot of supporters of the idea [of motorsport], but timing-wise it’s not right. Believe me, that was a very business-driven decision.”

A quickly changing market may have thrown Bentley’s (and most other manufacturers’) best-laid plans off course, but things still look promising in Crewe. The new Continental is a staggeringly complete car, one that still feels like a Bentley should despite now being techier than ever and losing its signature 12-pot engine. If Walliser can make sure that Bentley-ness can carry over into other higher-volume products, then the company’s future looks pretty rosy.