Bentley has announced production of its 6.0-liter W12 engine will come to an end next year.
It’s part of the company’s mission to level the average emissions across its entire range of cars to 0g/km of CO2 from 2030 onwards. Building a monster twelve-cylinder petrol leviathan—even with its history—is kinda unhelpful to that lofty goal.
And so the big lug’s gotta go. And it is big, in every sense. Six-liters of historic muscle that has, over the years, powered everything from a mid-engined VW concept to an A8, a VW Phaeton, and even a Spyker, but most famously they’ve nestled comfortably inside a raft of top-spec Bentleys.
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Indeed over the years Bentley has steadily increased the power output of the 6.0-liter by 37%, and torque by 54%, noting how emissions have come down over the same period by 25%. Clearly not enough for the future, of course. The two-decade long evolution of the W12 has taken in oil and cooling redesigns, better turbo tech, better injection and combustion processes and in 2015, a complete overhaul from the ‘sump up.’
The company tells us when it stops building the ‘iconic’ W12 by April 2024, it will have churned out more than 100,000 units over some twenty years.
“When we first launched the W12 back in 2003, we knew we had a mighty engine that would propel both our cars and the brand forwards at speed,” Bentley boss Adrian Hallmark said. “20 years and more than 100,000 W12s later, the time has come to retire this now-iconic powertrain as we take strides towards electrification, but not without giving it the best send-off possible, with the most powerful version of the engine ever created.”
He’s pointing to the final act for the W12, where it will sit inside the astonishing Bentley Baturand realize its most powerful iteration—a heady 740hp and 1,001Nm of torque. The power has been liberated via bigger turbo ducts, redesigned turbo compressors, bigger charge-air coolers, and revised engine and transmission calibrations. Should be sprightly, one suspects.
All 18 of these unique cars have of course been sold, but Bentley says it’s still possible to order the ‘standard’ 650hp Speed version of that W12 in the Conti GT, Bentayga, and Flying Spur. With the concession, of course, that demand for these last W12 cars “is expected to be high.”
“The 750PS [740hp] titan that Mulliner has created for the Batur marks the end of a development journey of which our engineering and manufacturing colleagues should be extremely proud,” Hallmark added, “and when production finishes in April next year we aim to retrain and redeploy all of the skilled craftspeople who still build each engine by hand.”
The space where they made the W12s will be given over to production of V8 and V6 hybrid Bentley units; indeed next year when the W12 dies, every Bentley on sale will get a hybrid option.
NOTE: This article first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
