Bentley Continental Supersports clocks 204 mph on road to Geneva motor show

By JULIAN RENDELL

A picture of Bentley Continental Supersports

Bentley Continental Supersports

Bentley Supersport
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Bling may not be the obvious place to be for a luxury sports car maker today, but here's Bentley showing what the ultimate development of the Continental GT will be.

The Continental Supersports will be shown next week at the Geneva motor show as a production model. Its 630-hp turbocharged W12 will make it the fastest and most-powerful Bentley ever.

The headline figure is 204 mph, taking the Supersports into the stratospheric territory of production cars capable of eating up a mile in less than 18 seconds.

The Supersports can do this while drinking either standard pump fuel or E85, making it the first Bentley to be biofuel compatible, a step that all future Bentley models will make as the British company pushes toward a greener future.

Started as an under-the-radar project, the Supersports is likely to become the best-selling Continental GT if Bentley¹s experience with its Speed models is anything to go by--the Speed model now makes up 60 percent of coupe sales.

"The Supersports is something my engineers worked on amongst themselves, to create the ultimate Continental, and then we picked it up as an official project," says Uli Eichhorn, Bentley chief engineer.

A picture of GENEVA

The changes to make the Supersports run on E85 should not be underestimated, adds Eichhorn. As well as re-engineering the fuel system to cope with the corrosive ethanol, all the electronic subsystems had to be reprogrammed and revalidated.

With U.S. regulatory approval still to be cleared, the Supersports will go into production the fall, with North American cars becoming E85-capable by summer 2010.

The main change to the engine to increase power above 600 hp is extra boost from the twin turbos, whose airflow is eased by 10 percent larger intercoolers. The latest, quick-shifting version of ZF's six-speed automatic helps the higher-output engine deliver sharper performance. Bentley quotes a 0-to-60-mph time of 3.7 seconds and 50 to 70 mph in 2.1 seconds.

Billed as the ultimate "extreme" Bentley by the company, there are dozens of detailed underskin changes to ensure the Supersports delivers a special driving experience.

Most significant is a new, rear-biased 60:40 torque split from the center differential for the four-wheel-drive system, which is said to reduce understeer and increase chassis adjustability on the throttle.

But there's also a wider rear track, extended by 0.8 inch to enhance high-speed stability, and standard carbon-ceramic brakes to haul the Supersports down from its tarmac-ripping top speed.

Steering, suspension, spring and damper rates have all been revised, too, in line with the extended performance.

A picture of GENEVA

The lower front suspension arm is now made from aluminum, the antiroll bar is retuned and stiffer bushings improve steering responses.

Even Bentley doesn't describe the 4,938-pound Supersports as lightweight, but it is considerably lighter than the Continental Speed.

The rear seat is removed, a rear panel is made from carbon fiber and new lightweight 20-inch wheels save 5.5 pounds per corner. In total, the Supersports is 242 pounds lighter than the GT Speed.

There are styling differences, too. The wider rear track necessitates new rear body panels that beef up the Supersports's rear haunch. Extra cooling vents are needed in the hood and front airdam, features that increase aggressiveness.

A subtle change is new brightwork around the window openings, which now features a smoky-chrome look. Even this cosmetic change introduces new technology, the finish being applied for the first time to stainless steel using physical vapor deposition.

Inside is new carbon fiber trim, including a cross-cabin beam that looks like a body stiffener but is actually a luggage retaining bar.

There's plenty of substance to this reworked Bentley Continental, which is also reflected in a significant 20 percent price rise. The figure is not final yet, but if you've got around $250,00 to spend on a fabulous sports car, the Bentley Continental Supersports just jumped onto your wish list.

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Porsche Cayenne S Hybrid To Deliver V-8 Power, 26+ mpg

By Colin Mathews

Porsche Cayenne S Hybrid
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Pure electric propulsion is the name of the game for cutting gas/electric hybrid fuel consumption, and Porsche claims to have taken it to a whole new level with the upcoming 2010 Cayenne S Hybrid. Capable of traveling at speeds up to 86 mph solely on electric propulsion, the 5,000-some-odd pound full-frame SUV's thirst for premium should be cut dramatically.

Porsche Cayenne S Hybrid
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Economy estimated at 26 mpg or slightly greater (extrapolated from Porsche's claim of less than 9 liters/100 km fuel consumed on the European cycle) is very respectable for this behemoth, but it's a figure shamed by car-based crossover hybrids. Interesting will be the difference between city and highway mileage; typically, gas/electric hybrids attain their biggest mileage benefits in city driving where the electric motors are most helpful, but this Porsche system turns that paradigm on its head with stout electric highway capabilities.

The hybrid drive in the Porsche Cayenne S Hybrid uses a parallel full hybrid design that sandwiches the electric motor between an Audi-sourced V-6 and an eight-speed automatic transmission. The V-6 is Audi's new 3.0-liter supercharged V-6 found in models like the 2009 Audi A6, itself surprisingly efficient considering the 333 hp and 324 lb-ft torque it yields. The electric motor will be supplied by a 154-lb. nickel metal hybrid battery that fits in the spare tire well.

Porsche promises no intrusions into cabin or cargo space, as well as a 0-60 mph sprint of just under 6.8 seconds. So drivers of heavy luxury SUVs may soon have their cake and eat it too. But aren't drivers of luxury SUVs quickly abandoning the segment? History will tell us the rest of the story, but let's not forget the miserable sales of GM's (Tahoe, Escalade) and Chrysler's (Aspen, Durango) well-engineered full-size SUV hybrids.

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The State of the Culture Is... Scared?

Wall Street isn't the only place with a fearful lack of understanding these days. Whether it's horror in Hollywood or Mumbai, the digital era has become boxed in to the unknown.

By Stephen Marche

Dale Robinette

When we're all dead, when people are looking back at our time from a distance of 100 years, they're going to say that we lived in the age of dark matter. That's the fancy name physicists have given to the nearly 95 percent of stuff in the universe that they simply don't understand. It's also a good description of credit-default swaps and the other intricate financial instruments that caused the economic crash — "financial weapons of mass destruction," as Warren Buffett called them, explaining away risk by means of algorithms that no one, not even Warren Buffett, could understand. And how else to explain the niche following of a critically maligned show like Fringe, which isn't just about freaky paranormal stuff, flesh-eating poisons, babies born as old men, engineered parasites, and so on. No: All these fears are tied together into "the Pattern," a mysterious dark power evident everywhere but present nowhere. We're not entering a Great Depression so much as a Great Incomprehension: We just have no idea what's happening and no clue how bad things are going to get. Therefore we fear. Our spiritual condition of the moment, in our intellectual confusion, our down-spiraling economy, our various wars against we don't know who, is a fearful lack of understanding: Something is out there. We know it must be logical, but that's all we know.

Just look at our current slate of horror films. Scary movies serve the same function in the 20th and 21st centuries that fairy tales served the children of an earlier age — to make our broadest and vaguest terrors into something concrete and therefore confrontable. In the 1950s, radioactive mutation and the threat of nuclear annihilation became Godzilla, The Blob, the gigantic ants of "Them!" The McCarthy hearings gave rise to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the mindless consumerism of the 1970s to the zombies outside the mall in Dawn of the Dead. The 1990s saw Natasha Henstridge in Species become the cipher for brand-new anxieties about genetic manipulation. Horror movies purge us of the fears we inhale every day off the front pages of the newspapers. That's their job. So it should come as no surprise that this year's frights stem from knowing without understanding. And boxes. Stay with me here: In the new Nicolas Cage thriller, Knowing, the hero uncovers a time capsule, a container, in which he finds predictions of all the world's catastrophes. He knows but he doesn't understand: That's his and our terror. In The Box, out later this year from Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly, a married couple receives a plain wooden machine that provides them with $1 million every time they push a button, with the stipulation that every time they use it, someone they don't know, somewhere in the world, will die. These plain boxes, which in simpler times could've simply been sources of mystery or intrigue, become instruments of terror, but it's better our heroes confront fantasy boxes than the boxes that real people actually have to deal with, on the New York subway, on the beaches in Tel Aviv, hidden under a seat in a train station in Mumbai, which are much more terrifying: a nihilism that roars, a ferocious and empty hatred of the fullness of the world, unknowable but also unignorable.

Not unlike the terrorists themselves. In June 2008, the Newseum in Washington opened "G-Men and Journalists," an exhibit of FBI artifacts that includes the Unabomber's cabin. Ted Kaczynski's hideout was a modest affair, a 10-by-12-foot plywood cabin in Montana where he lived as a hunter-gatherer without running water or electricity. He objected strenuously to the exhibit. A legal brief that Kaczynski wrote himself and presented to the court claimed that the display violated the "victims' objection to publicity connected with the Unabom case." Kaczynski did not, however, object to Robert Kusmirowski's sculpture "Unicabine," which the New Museum in New York was showing at the same time, even though it was an exact replica of his cabin. The difference between the artifact and the artwork? You couldn't see inside Kusmirowski's sculpture; the cabin was entirely enclosed. He had made the Unabomber's house a box. Brilliant. Because that's what Kaczynski and the other terrorists are and would prefer to remain — dark matter, impenetrable and incomprehensible.

The funny thing is that we're supposed to be living in the golden age of information, when anyone can find any name, any date, any historical detail, any formula, with a click of the mouse. But unlike Socrates, who claimed to be the wisest man in Athens because he was the only one who knew what he didn't know, we choose to be freaked out by what we don't know. Doris Salcedo's "Shibboleth," a 548-foot gash created in the concrete floor of the Tate Modern in London last winter, was a huge hit with both audiences and critics because it reflected so precisely the feeling we're all having: a chasm opening up below us. Part of the attraction of the work was that the artist refused to say how it had been done. It ran through the building like a river of unknowing, and viewers let themselves be swept away in its currents.

Maybe that's the solution to all this. Maybe we need to lose our fear of the unknown and show a little humility about the limitations of knowledge. Because if nothing else, that might point us to the fragility and glory of the world we live in. After each bombing, we worry about the vulnerability of our cities, but we're also shown just how magnificent they are. One of the most exclusive Manhattan nightclubs in recent years has been the Box — $1,000 table service, celebrities, bizarre cabaret shows featuring acts of sexual daring, an attempt at maximum hedonism. The place chose its name well. The fleetingness of beauty and the ephemerality of materialism glitter more brightly in contrast with approaching darkness.

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