Until Rolls-Royce launches the Cullinan, the Bentley Bentayga is the de facto ultra-luxury sport utility vehicle bar none. With help from the personal commissioning department Mulliner, the gentle giant gets even more swanky. This Bentayga, however, is very far out.
Going by the name of Falconry, the main theme of the pictured SUV is an ancient sport that brings together a falconer and one of the greatest predators the world has ever seen. Ruthless but calculated, gifted with mind-boggling hunting skills and diving speeds of up to 200 mph (320 km/h), the falcon is a stellar bird of prey, make no mistake about that.
“Falconry is regarded as the sport of kings in the Middle East,” declared Geoff Dowding, the director of the Mulliner division, “so it was vital that the kit we created was as luxurious as it was practical and durable to appeal to our valued customers there and around the world.” In truth, however, the Bentayga Falconry was created to showcase what the British automaker’s most skilled craftspeople are capable of making.
First of all, the Hotspur-trimmed cabin is beautified by marquetry consisting of 430 individual pieces of exquisite wood. It takes the automaker nine days to put all those bits together, and the result speaks volumes. Care to guess how much the saker falcon that dominates the artwork costs in real life? Good examples sell for hundreds of thousands, whereas the very best specimen fetch $1,000,000. “Special” is an understatement on this occasion.
The trunk hides some goodies of its own. More to the point, two cabinets dressed in natural cork fabric. One is the “master flight station,” whereas the second is where the owner can store a few refreshments. The Bentayga Falconry also boasts two natural cork fabric-trimmed perches designed to slot into an individual pocket located at the side of the trunk. Lastly, the trunk floor and rear-sill protection cover are finished in natural cork, a material that’s both sustainable and pretty fancy in this application.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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