Bentley’s New Flying Spur Looks To Get In On The Plug-In Hybrid Action

Well well well… what have we here? It may look like a Chrysler 300 undergoing rhinoplasty. But what we’re actually looking at is the next-generation Bentley Flying Spur. And not just any conventional version, either: according to our intrepid paparazzi, this is the hybrid version.

The four-door counterpart to the new Continental GT, the latest Flying Spur is being developed atop the same platform as the Porsche Panamera. But you can rest assured that it’ll receive thoroughly Bentley styling and details, both inside and out.

It may be hard to discern much about the vehicle’s design, what with all that heavy body cladding. But underneath it all, we’d wager, is the same plug-in hybrid powertrain as the Panamera 4 E-Hybrid and the new Bentayga Hybrid.

How can we tell? Well, we can’t, to tell you the truth. Not from these photos, anyway. But our shutterbugs on the scene tell us this prototype has two gas caps – one on each side. And while Jaguar used to do that with some of its sedans back in the day, in this case we’d wager the second one is actually covering a charging port.

If it’s packing the same powertrain as the Panamera and Bentayga, we’d be looking at a 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 with an electric-motor assist. We’ve yet to see final specs on the plug-in crossover, but the Porsche version produces a combined 456 horsepower (462 PS/340 kW) and 516 lb-ft (700 Nm) of torque.

That’d be a fair bit less than the 500 hp (507 PS/373 kW) and 487 lb-ft (660 Nm) in even the base V8 model of the current Flying Spur. But then that model can’t go without fueling up every so many miles. And let us not forget that Porsche has an even more potent model in the form of the Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid.

That model packs all the bragging rights in its 671 hp (680 PS/500 kW) and 627 lb-ft (850 Nm). Which just about splits the difference to the 626 hp (635 PS/467 kW) and 664 lb-ft (900 Nm) in the new twelve-cylinder engine that powers the latest Continental GT, and which is sure to be offered in the new Flying Spur as well.

Look for Bentley’s new sedan to arrive, in one form or another, sometime later this year or early the next.