Bentley to focus on performance, rather than luxury

The world of super luxury sedans might be a thing of the past for Bentley. The company decided to focus on performance vehicles, as well as run on an 18-month production cycle.

Bentley researchers found that owners of two-door Continentals tend to keep their cars around 12 to 18 months. After that, their desire for a new, high priced car has them shopping around, hence the new production cycle. Furthermore, the report also says that when Bentley made a coupe and a convertible of the same model, some customers bought both.

This new cycle and customer habits are part of the reason for the new 2011 Bentley Continental Supersports Convertible, a variant on the Supersports, which is the fast version of the GT. The drop-top Supersports will cost around $280,000 and will come only a year after we got the base $267,000 Supersports.

All of these performance cars might be a sign of things to come for the company, as they look to get back to their fast car roots.

Bentley will look to separate themselves from Rolls-Royce, as the two have long been linked together. It’s been nearly a decade since Rolls went off to join BMW and Bentley was swooped up Volkswagen.

Bentley global director of planning, Richard Leopold believes that the change to more speed-focused models will help the company move away from luxury vehicles and closer to Maserati and Lamborghini. He says that buyers of those Italian brands might be willing to consider moving to sportier Bentleys.

Whatever Bentley decides to do, they need to hurry up. The old Continental is seven years old and sales are down due to the economic crisis. We hope to have more news soon.