Bentley Bentayga achieves 20,000 production milestone

- First-ever Bentley SUV

- It took four years to achieve the milestone

With changing times, luxury and sports car manufacturers have been jumping on the SUV bandwagon building a high-riding vehicle for the first time in their long and celebrated history. Porsche did it with the Cayenne, Lamborghini introduced the Urus, Aston Martin’s take was the DBX, Rolls Royce got the Cullinan and Bentley managed the same with the Bentayga. Now, after four years since its introduction, the Bentayga has achieved a milestone of 20,000 units built.

Introduced in 2016, the Bentayga is manufactured at the British marque’s Crewe plant. It has been on offer across five derivatives and four different engine options. Each Bentayga takes more than 100 hours on a dedicated production line to be built, where a team of 230 craftspeople meticulously assemble each unit by hand.

At the launch, the Bentayga came fitted with a twin-turbocharged 6.0-litre W12 which makes 600bhp and 900Nm. It has a 0-100kmph time of just 4.0 seconds and a top speed in excess of 300kmph. Then came the V8 (same one from the Urus), where the 542bhp and 770Nm were enough for a 0-100kmph sprint of 4.4 seconds and 290kmph of top speed. Bentley then followed it with a diesel V8 as well. The Bentayga Speed has been the most powerful derivative with 625bhp on tap. Also part of the line-up is a V6 petrol-hybrid with CO2 emissions of just 79g/km (under WLTP).

In 2018, the British carmaker took the Bentayga to Pikes Peak Hill Climb and smashed the record of the fastest production SUV to go up the hill. With Rhys Millen behind the wheel, the Bentayga finished the 12.42-mile course in just 10:49:9 seconds, almost two minutes quicker than the previous record.