The new Bentley Continental Flying Spur makes its international debut at the Geneva Salon on March 1 and will begin its global roll-out from April 2005. Sharing heart and soul with its highly successful stablemate, the Continental GT, the Continental Flying Spur is a four-door Grand Tourer born of a coupe.
Bentley Continental Flying Spur - Safety
The increase in wheelbase over the Continental GT coupe means the Continental Flying Spur will react differently to the physical forces created in the event of an accident. The change in what is known as its 'crash pulse' means it has a revised crash structure between the engine and front bumper. To ensure the highest possible protection in the event of a head-on crash the car was subjected to a series of advanced simulated crashes on a super-computer as well as more standard real world tests.
Bentley's advanced Dynamic Crash Analysis (DCA) capability means much of the trial and error traditionally associated with providing a car with good impact resistance has been bypassed. Indeed, so highly developed are the procedures that Bentley's engineers can put the Continental Flying Spur through a real world crash test with great confidence that the result will vary in no major way from those predicted in the virtual world.
Nevertheless it should be understood that DCA, as with all virtual design work, will never replace real world test procedures, nor was it ever designed to. Its role is simply to ensure that by the time these tests are conducted, the product is in as good a shape as possible to meet each new challenge.
To protect its occupants, the Continental Flying Spur is equipped with a full suite of safety equipment. There are two front airbags, four side thorax airbags for the front and rear-seats and full-length curtain bags that extend to the back of the cabin. Seat-belt pre-tensioners are used for all seats and a passenger occupant sensing system in the rear seats automatically raises the rear headrests to ensure the best possible protection against whiplash injuries.
It's not just the range of safety systems that protect the car's occupants, for the Continental Flying Spur's all-round abilities mean the driver is assured of having the performance to avoid many accidents in the first place. The all-wheel drive system offers major safety advantages not only in adverse road and weather conditions, while the latest traction, stability and brake control systems offer further opportunities to avert potential danger. Similarly the powerful 6.0-litre engine means outstandingly fast acceleration and a reduction in the time spent on the wrong side of the road during overtaking. To this end, the Continental Flying Spur is specified like no other four-door in the world.