Interior Motives: Bentley EXP 100 GT

Getting to 100 years old, let alone celebrating this in style, can be tough for any business, but Bentley pulled off the trick with aplomb at its Crewe, UK headquarters. The visual centrepiece of the luxury British brand’s birthday bash in July 2019 was the unveiling of its stunning EXP 100 GT all-electric grand tourer concept which is also, as head of interior design Brett Boydell tells Interior Motives, an important indicator for Bentley’s intentions looking ahead – to the year 2035, to be exact.

“About two years ago we started thinking about where we saw the future of Bentley going, based on trends within automotive and travel,” Boydell recalls. “We looked at various different concepts and did a six-month future luxury study, a think-tank approach, because this concept is more than just a styling exercise, it’s actually a company brand manifesto. Design, sales and marketing, engineering and the planning people all got together to ask serious questions: the importance of a sustainable future, craftsmanship and technology, and the user experience as well.”

EXP 100 GT sketches

One of the key things we had to decide on was autonomy and driving,” says Brett Boydell. “We said ‘we need autonomy’, but decided that if this car was going to enhance extraordinary journeys, then we should include driving for those who want it, for the experience. On this concept, the steering wheel only goes forward and backward a little bit; it doesn’t completely disappear. The other big thing is that so many autonomous concepts have facing seats, which prescribe a very MPV-like exterior shape. We worked very closely with head of exterior design John Paul Gregory and [he said] ‘we don’t want an MPV’. We wanted something that is still emotional with a beautiful proportion, and low-slung. So we went with forward-facing seats, but [a layout] which still has the configurability to go from two to three or four seats.”

In simple terms, the EXP 100 GT – which is a little longer than the current-day extended wheelbase Mulsanne (5825mm) – has two lavish and movable front seats; behind these are two more built into the rear bulkhead, with squabs that lift out in a linear fashion as headrests deploy. The aluminium front seat frames feature carbon fibre, and incorporate biometric sensors.

“On this concept each diamond represents a different air cell, it has adaptive [back support] technology,” Boydell explains. “But we wanted them to be artistic too, so we took the embroidery pattern from the doors and put it into the seats. We wanted a structural, technical look – we ‘own’ diamond quilting in theory – but everyone else is [also] on it, so how do we move it on? On the EXP 100 GT, it’s more organic. There’s this cell structure at the base of the back of the seat and as it dissipates, the pattern dissipates too.”

Clay modelling development

The interface concept uses artificial intelligence: two crystal pieces – one set diagonally between two wood-clad dashboard loops, and the other housed horizontally, within the rear centre armrest – glow, pulse and refract light to confirm understanding of driver or passenger gestures or voice commands. Consequently, hardly any physical switches, knobs or even touchscreens are required.

Notionally, the EXP 100 GT will be able to record experiences – not just moving landscape images via outward-facing cameras, but also the surrounding sounds and smells, and store these for future playback. “One of our engineers recalled a moment when he was driving over the Golden Gate Bridge in an old Porsche 911 when the perfect [music] track came on, the sun was setting, and for a minute everything was right in the world; and he wished he could have captured all of those elements. So we used that idea,” says Boydell. He envisaged a piece of crystal the user could put into a slot with a digital imprint of the journey for ‘memento information’: a bit like a fancy USB stick, but conceived in physical form to be “more ceremonial”.

Colour, materials and fabrics development

While the wheelbase of the EXP 100 GT allowed for generous packaging, the space under its long nose – not housing a large combustion engine – was not wasted. Brett Boydell and his team came up with the idea of a carousel under the hood which works with the car’s AI system, understands the journey – and pre-orders and loads appropriate cartridges to be delivered via a chute to the cabin. “We will be partnering with luxury services to cater for journeys in the future, and the cartridge system [could deliver] sushi for lunch, refreshing hand towels, or cufflinks and a tie,” Boydell enthuses.

The colour and materials palette of the EXP 100 GT is diverse, and unusual in its non-automotive supplier list. “The interior of the cabin is covered in fabric. We worked with Gainsborough Silk Weaving Company, but on this concept it’s actually a bespoke cotton damask, simple and sustainable,” Boydell says. “The fabric has an ombré effect which made it really complicated, but it’s unique to the car. It was woven on a 100-year old loom.”

The finished intierior and its user interface

The embroidery was the work of London-based Hand & Lock, who used a quilting technique dating back to the 14th century, known as ‘trapunto’, or ‘stuffed work’, where extra padding is slipped behind the textile top. The raised design reflects the light and provides shadow on the surface, giving a sculptural effect.

The Fenland Black Oak Project, a British initiative salvaging wood from ancient trees preserved in peat bogs, lakes and rivers, supplied the copper-infused riverwood – said to be 5000 years old. The wool carpet was sourced from Grosvenor Wilton Carpets, UK, and an organic leather-like textile using by-products from wine-making from Italian firm Vegea. These complement the natural-finish leather from Bridge of Weir, Scotland.

“The lighting on the inside was with [lighting artist] Moritz Waldemeyer,” says Boydell, “and for the crystal pieces, for the AI representations in the front and back, we worked with Cumbria Crystal, who are the last true crystal house left in the UK to go from sand to a final product. They still hand-blow everything.

The Bentley Personal Assistant, visualised via the three-layer crystal centrepiece and activated by touch or gesture commands, incorporates AI to pre-empt passenger demands: when they might want more seat support in autonomous mode, for instance, or by seats responding to occupant position. The biometric sensors throughout the cabin monitor factors including temperature and environmental conditions, eye and head movements, and occupant blood pressure. Gesture-controlled content can be displayed and ‘pulled down’ through illumination and projection – on the door cards, for example. Where tactile controls are needed, the rotary switches are copper and aluminium.

The displays – including transparent OLED screens in the doors with automatically darkening glass – incorporate augmented reality; the front screen can project film, live video and other media in autonomous driving mode. Prisms embedded in the glass roof collect light and transmit it via fibre optics.

Five passenger modes can be selected: Enhance, heightening the external light, sound, smell and air quality; Cocoon, with opaque glass areas and air purification; Capture, to record the experiences; Re-Live, to replay them; and Customise, combining elements of all the above. The air purification system is housed in the trunk; and vents on the rear passenger shelf and front passenger panel undulate for a breathing-like effect. A bespoke scent has been created for the car by fragrance house 12.29, with notes of sandalwood and fresh moss.

From every angle, and in every nook and cranny of the EXP 100 GT’s cabin, the level of detail is astounding. Yet despite the far-reaching ideas put forward, Brett Boydell, John Paul Gregory and overall design boss Stefan Sielaff were kept in check by other departments’ demands that all the tech and design functions could be realised in the time frame imagined, which adds to the relevance of the EXP 100 GT beyond its aesthetic brilliance. As Boydell concludes: “This concept has depth to every message within it. All the time we were presenting to the board, they were challenging us constantly: ‘why have you done that? What’s the point?’. Everything had to have a sustainable approach and an engineering roadmap to support it. Our engineering director said, ‘if we can’t make that by 2035, it’s not going in’.”

Dimensions: Length 5878mm, width 2096mm, height 1401mm, wheelbase 3420mm.