Bentley Adds Variable Displacement, Garish Trim To The 2004 VW Phaeton

Jack Baruth
by Jack Baruth

Nine years ago, I paid fifty-eight thousand dollars for a new VW Phaeton, after paying seventy-seven thousand dollars for a different VW Phaeton six months previously. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.* I was very active on a VW message board at the time and it was not uncommon for me to get random private messages from teenagers:

99VWJettaSlushbox: lol suck it u loser the FAILton is the worst VW ever

I enjoyed my Phaetons tremendously and drove them everywhere from Manhattan to VIR. However, I was virtually alone in my enthusiasm for the model. My second Phaeton, the black 2006 V8, was one of just 300 brought into the United States that year. When VW discontinued US sales before the 2007 model year, most people took that decision as conclusive proof that you can’t sell a $100,000 Volkswagen to Americans. They were correct; however, you can sell a $200,000 Volkswagen to Americans, and you can do it for a very long time.

The Bentley Continental GT and Flying Spur are, of course, the Sevilles to the Phaeton’s Nova, or possibly the Cimmarons to the Phaeton’s Cavalier. Probably the latter, because the CGT and Spur were cheaper in real terms than any other Bentley sold in the postwar era. Although much has been done to differentiate the cars, from completely unique exterior styling to a real Bentley-burnished (well, supplier-burnished) metal ring around the power-mirror joystick, if you drove them blindfolded only the superior thrust from the W12 or turbo V8 would let you know you were in the Bentley.

As a consequence, these are now old cars, particularly when considered in the context of the Rolls-Royce Wraith and Ghost. (For the record, the 7-Series-to-Ghost transition is far more convincing than the Bentley’s bespoke disguise.) Last year, the Flying Spur received a complete suite of upgrades, including a new and very vintage-looking rear body contour. This year, the CGT gets the upgrades, too.

The most interesting change is the addition of variable displacement technology to the W12. This cylinder-deactivation scheme, seen previously everywhere from the Cadillac V-8-6-4 to the Honda Odyssey to the V8-powered Continental GT, improves fuel economy by five percent. Or, “as much as five percent”. Which means “probably less, but definitely not more, than.”

An utterly horrifying new “flying B vent” distinguishes your $250,000 Mulliner Driving Specification Speed GT from the $40,000 deferred-maintenance 2005-model-year specials on eBay and will be very popular with your friends at your private Moscow high school. The current look of the Continental GT, festooned as it is with all manner of chrome and brushed metal and exterior highlighting, makes me almost nostalgic for the debut model, which was remarkably ungainly-looking and almost LaForza-esque the way it sat high on massive wheels but which had unadorned flanks and the courage of its visual convictions.

What Bentley could really use would be an aluminum CGT based on the next (or even the current) Audi A8. Given that they’ve just redone the bodywork on the current cars, however, it probably won’t happen immediately. In the meantime, you can get the same quality of drive from a used Phaeton W12, and have $230,000 left over for unscheduled maintenance. Just be prepared to be told how Americans won’t pay real money for a gussied-up VW, okay?

* With apologies to the late Douglas Adams.

Jack Baruth
Jack Baruth

More by Jack Baruth

Comments
Join the conversation
3 of 66 comments
  • 993cc 993cc on Feb 17, 2015

    so, a W12-10-8-6-4, then?

    • NoGoYo NoGoYo on Feb 17, 2015

      If you had three banks of cylinders, you could do a W12-8-4.

  • Wmba Wmba on Feb 18, 2015

    The Phaeton : Ferdy Piech's wet dream. VW Group is trying to save $5 billion annually to pay off the interest and principal on their ill-judged MQB venture. So several weeks ago, Euro business mags were criticizing Piech for plowing ahead with the Phaeton Mark Two, considering that an analysis showed that each Phaeton cost VW $28,000 to make over and above what they were sold for. But Piech is bound and determined to make that up with volume. And he's the boss. So the glass-walled factory remains, where ordinary mouth-agape stolid Germans can come and watch craftsmen bolt together highly overweight, loss-producing cars in the time-honored manner using air guns, so medieval in concept and execution. When the Phaeton first came out, it was pointed out that rendering an Audi A8 in steel rather than aluminum added over 1,000 pounds of Buick-like road-hugging weight, dulling its responses and trashing already poor fuel economy. Still a quick car of course, and decidedly decent for passing cars at 130 mph on the right hand shoulder. Quite why I'm supposed to buy into a semi-trashing of the Bentley simply because VW charge a prime dollar for it, rather than the giveaway prices they charged for the same car underneath as a Phaeton, is beyond me. Not only is this yet another rant on the edges of one niche of the car world, it rates as another solid irrelevancy. The only fascinating thing it brings up is the examinination of the hubris of Piech, whose decisions can have wide-ranging impact on the car world at large when he goes off the rails. Show me the Bentley Owners Association lawsuit clamoring for their money back, and maybe this critique would have some merit. Other than that, it's just personal biased opinion pretending to be important news and "OMG isn't it just awful!" attempted rabble-rousing. Like that "they kicked me in the nuts" Porsche lament last week. It's all too personal for what appears on the surface as an attempt as real analysis, and not objective. Outrage on small matters affecting few people, and relatively privileged people at that who buy new, is surely not the written matter of legend. And as for the wide-eyed twits buying 10 year old Contis on eBay, so what?

  • ArialATOMV8 All I hope is that the 4Runner stays rugged and reliable.
  • Arthur Dailey Good. Whatever upsets the Chinese government is fine with me. And yes they are probably monitoring this thread/site.
  • Jalop1991 WTO--the BBB of the international trade world.
  • Dukeisduke If this is really a supplier issue (Dana-Spicer? American Axle?), Kia should step up and say they're going to repair the vehicles (the electronic parking brake change is a temporary fix) and lean on or sue the supplier to force them to reimburse Kia Motors for the cost of the recall.Neglecting the shaft repairs are just going to make for some expensive repairs for the owners down the road.
  • MaintenanceCosts But we were all told that Joe Biden does whatever China commands him to!
Next