Bentley's Bogus Biofuel Bomber

By John Voelcker

John Voelcker

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Bentley Continental Supersports

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It seems to be an ethanol day around here. First we learn that ethanol and Muslims may not mix, then we got an e-mail asking about the new 2010 Bentley Continental Supersports--aka the "green Bentley".

Our response: BWAHAHAHAHA! Yeah, right. Uh huh. You bet.

Let us explain. First, as every last car blog has covered ad nauseam, Bentley is introducing a new 612-horsepower hot rod. Sitting above the Continental GT Speed in the lineup, it has big air-gulping ducts in a redesigned front end, even wider wheels, and a host of other cool stuff. All great so far.

But then there's Bentley's little problem with green cred. Last year, Bentley head Franz-Josef Paefgren issued a lengthy document (we're looking at it now) laying out how Bentley was going to get its lineup to the magic CO2 emissions level of 120 grams/kilometer on average. It wasn't about diesels, lower performance or--god forbid--smaller cars. Nope, it was all about ethanol.

Bentley pledged to make its cars capable of running not only on (premium) gasoline, but also on ethanol. Because ethanol is a renewable fuel made from biomass, the CO2 emitted from a car running on ethanol is pretty much what the plants sucked out of the air--so net CO2 footprint is close to zero. Sort of. There are lots of caveats, which we laid out when we noted that riding in ethanol cars may be a sin for Muslims.

As with flex-fueled vehicles in general, the problem is that most Supersports drivers will never run a single drop of ethanol through their German-engineered, British-badged all-wheel-drive twin-turbocharged W-12 coupes. We'd venture to stay that not that many Bentleys are sold in the Midwestern United States (the only place E85 can be found), and current biofuels have become hugely controversial in Europe.

Sweden continues to build cars capable of running on pure ethanol (E100), which they derive from logging waste. Saab in particular is a pioneer here, but they're having their own problems at the moment, having just been cut loose by General Motors.

Now, don't get us wrong. We LOVE Bentleys. If we had a spare $200,000 or so, we'd add a Continental GT to our garage in a hot second. They're gorgeous, fast, comfortable, and just all-round elegant. When Bentley was kind enough to loan us a GT Speed last summer, we learned that you get a thumbs-up from people who just think the car is beautiful. They know it's expensive, but it doesn't carry that arrogant-SOB aura that so many other brands do. (Porsche, Hummer, are you listening?) Everyone likes a Bentley.

But, listen, guys. The flex-fuel thing? It's a kluge. And it's a clumsy kluge at that. No one (except a Swede or two?) will ever run their Supersports on ethanol. If we weren't feeling so charitable toward you and your cars, we'd almost call it a greenwash.

Now, an electric Bentley, on the other hand ...

Bentley Continental Supersports

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Bentley Continental Supersports

Enlarge Photo