Bentley unleashes the Batur, its most powerful car yet

The latest hand-built grand tourer from the prestige brand sounds impressive, but customers will probably have to pay nearly $2 million for the pleasure of owning one

Full throttle in Bentley's Mulliner Batur. All photos: Bentley

The Batur is a two-door coupe.

The view of the driver's seat.

Only 18 Baturs will be created.

The start/stop button doesn't lack any of the fanciness of the rest of the vehicle.

A grille to thrill.

The Batur's sporty seats.

Head on.

The Batur follows on from Bentley's Bacalar.

Old-school dials on the Batur.

The Batur is the most powerful Bentley in history.

The Batur's powerful red brake calipers are an essential addition.

The passenger-side dashboard.

The Batur has a 6-litre twin turbocharged engine.

Inside the cabin.

The Batur is named after a lake in Indonesia.

The Batur's fierce grille.

An enticing ride.

Bentley has released the first images of its most powerful vehicle yet: the Mulliner Batur. Only 18 will be made, however, and they’ve already all been reserved.

Unsurprisingly for Bentley, the Batur is a grand tourer at the premium end of the spectrum.

With its muscular looks created by design director Andreas Mindt and his team, the two-door coupe has design features that the brand says will ultimately be signature flourishes of the electric vehicles it plans to manufacture in the future, despite being petrol driven.

The Batur range will be the most powerful series of cars Bentley has ever produced, with each being fitted out with a 750-horsepower version of the 6-litre twin-turbocharged W12 engine that has been a brand benchmark for the past two decades.

Bentley says this powertrain has been developed so effectively over the years it now produces 40 per cent more power, with fuel economy up by a quarter.

And all that power will sit inside similarly advanced chassis, with air suspension, anti-roll control, and four-wheel steering and torque vectoring all in situ. In layman's terms, this means it’ll probably be comfortable and go round corners pretty rapidly.

It’ll also have what’s being referred to as a sports exhaust, so buyers won't want to forget to roll the window down when they're revving the engine.

The Batur succeeds the Bacalar, another limited-edition project.

The earlier model is recognised as the one that relaunched the concept of coachbuilding (which signifies cars built by hand) at Bentley. Both the Batur and Bacalar have been named after spectacular stretches of water, in Indonesia and Mexico respectively.

The first customers will get their Baturs around the middle of 2023. There is no firm word on how much the vehicles will cost, but commentators suggest sums nearing the $2 million mark.

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