First introduced to the Bentley model lineup in 2023, the 6.0-litre twin-turbocharged W12 engine built by the engineering team in Crowe will soon be retiring to make way for V8 and electrified powertrains. Reaching its 20th anniversary soon over 105,000 units of the W12 engine have been made. As a perfect send-off, the last of the W12 engines will be the most powerful and will be powering the limited-production Bentley Batur handcrafted by Mulliner.
The decision to end the production of the W12 engine comes as part of Bentley’s acceleration towards a sustainable future through its Beyond100 strategy. Through the strategy, the company’s entire model line will be fully electrified by 2030. Currently, Bentley has the Flying Spur Hybrid and the Bentayga Hybrid spearheading its electrification efforts.
Unveiled to the world in August 2022 during the Monterey Car Week, the Bentley Batur showcases the new design DNA for the brand’s future range of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs). However, it did so whilst housing a W12 engine. While the performance figures of the Batur’s W12 engine were not confirmed yet back then, the engine’s development has now been completed and Bentley has confirmed that it is capable of producing 750 hp (metric) at 5,5500 rpm and 1,000 Nm at 1,750- 5,000 rpm.
Only 18 units of the Bentley Batur will be produced and they have all been sold out at the time of writing. Handcrafted by Mulliner, the Batur’s name is in reference to Lake Batur, which is a 16 km2 crater lake in Bali, Indonesia.
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Bentley Chairman and Chief Executive, Adrian Hallmark said, “Our progressive journey towards sustainable luxury mobility means making changes to every area of Bentley Motors. 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 forward at speed. 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.”
“The 750 hp (metric) 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, 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.”
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As for the 30 skilled craftspeople that hand-assemble and test every single W12 Bentley engine, they will all be retained and redeployed in the company. The W12 engine production facility will be repurposed as an expanded line for the completion of other Bentley engines.
In its close to 20 years of existence, Bentley’s W12 engine has evolved for better performance and efficiency. In its final iteration in the Batur, the W12 engine receives a reworked intake, a reworked exhaust, and a reworked cooling system to unleash more power and torque. The turbocharger compressors have been redesigned and the air ducts that feed air into them are now 33% larger.
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