Bentley SUV confirmed for production

A Bentley worker has told the Sentinel that the Bentley EXP 9 F – the Bentley SUV – is confirmed for production.

It obviously didn’t seem like a big deal to the reporter at Staffordshire’s Sentinel newspaper when a Bentley employee told them that the Bentley SUV was going in to production and would guarantee employment for the next 14 years. But it is a big deal.

There never seemed any doubt that the Bentley EXP 9 F would make it in to production – it’s all a bit of a no-brainer with markets like China swallowing Bentleys and SUVs – but no one at Bentley has confirmed this officially.

But it seems Bentley has told their workforce in Crewe that the SUV is going in to production, perhaps as part of a placatory tactic as the workforce are disgruntled over a forced extra week shutdown at Crewe this summer as Bentley run out of Continental bodyshells.

The extra week unpaid shutdown is certainly the big news for the local economy, but for the rest of us its the Bentley SUV heading to production, and with the sort of volume – according to Bentley boss Wolfgang Duerheimer – that will add more than 50 per cent to Bentley’s production.

We’re sure Bentley will deign to tell the rest of us officially that its SUV has a green light for production at some point.

Update: Despite the assertion of the Bentley employee in this story that the EXP 9 F has had the green light for production, Bentley has been on the phone since we published this story to say the SUV is still in development and that no announcement has been made to staff concerning its future production. We’re happy to clarify Bentley’s official position.