Wednesday One-Off: Bentley Hunaudières

As part of the deal orchestrated during the sell-off by Vickers plc between 1997 and 1998, Volkswagen acquired the rights and assets of the Bentley marque for £430m, while BMW paid £40m to acquire the rights to use the Rolls-Royce name on the cars it would go on to produce at the new facility in Goodwood.

Many observers at the time felt that BMW got the sweeter deal, but over the long term Bentley has proved to be extremely lucrative for VW. Not only that, but in 1998 the Wolfsburg behemoth also snapped up Lamborghini and Bugatti, creating a portfolio of luxury brands under its control in very short order.

As part of a publicity drive to set out the stall for the ‘new’ Bentley Motors in late 1998, it is said that Dr. Ferdinand Piëch instructed the team to produce something “spectacular”. VW's Design Director at the time, Hartmut Warkus, was reportedly called in to oversee the rapid development of a suitable show car, which needed to be ready for the Geneva motor show in February 1999.

Volkswagen had already presented a radical mid-engined supercar concept in 1997 with the Giugiaro-designed and W12-engined Syncro coupe, and what emerged from Bentley looked at first glance to be a natural progression of this idea.

When the cover came off in Geneva, the audience was greeted by a taut, rounded shape that almost echoed the likes of the Jaguar XJ220. At the front was a large mesh grille, flanked by dual Frenched-in headlights, with the bonnet leading to a heavily raked windscreen and shallow glasshouse. Deep air intakes were sculpted into the sides, and the large alloy wheels were pushed into the four corners to give it a planted stance.

While the Hunaudières was never intended as a running concept, its proposed engine was a naturally aspirated 8.0-litre W16, producing up to 632hp, and coupled to a five-speed manual transmission. For the purposes of the motor show, engineers had mocked up the engine for display, reportedly by joining two Audi V8 units together. A further short-cut was enabled by the alleged use of a Lamborghini Diablo chassis to underpin the concept.

It is understood that after its motor show tour and press duties elsewhere, the Hunaudières was put into storage by VW until it was moved to permanent exhibition within the Bentley Pavilion of the marque’s Autostadt facility.

Other than the Le Mans prototype Speed 8, which won the prestigious 24 Hours event in 2003, Bentley has never released another mid-engined car or concept – but the influence of the Hunaudières should not be understated. The car may not have previewed a mid-engined production vehicle from Crewe, but it was an important ‘stepping stone’ for Wolfsburg in the overall development and positioning of the landmark Veyron – and just a glance at the Bentley’s interior shows a clear link to the Bugatti.

Indeed, two parallel design projects were reportedly in development under Hartmut Warkus for the car that would ultimately lead to the Veyron, with one developed by Andreas Mindt (who would return as Bentley’s director of design in 2021), and the other by Jozef Kabaň. It was Mindt’s creation that resulted in the Hunaudières show car, while Kabaň’s became the foundation for the Veyron as we know it today.