I’m in Seoul, Korea, to witness the reveal of what might be Bentley’s most consequential release since the Continental GT in 2003: the all-electric Torcal SUV.
Tight, winding streets, diabolical traffic, and surprisingly liberal attitudes towards road rules do little to affect Bentley’s popularity here. It’s the world’s fifth largest market for the brand and the largest in Asia-Pacific.
It makes sense, then, that the company’s global leadership has travelled from Crewe to the affluent Seongbuk district (home to cultural centres and ambassadorial residences, including our own) to mix it with the region’s glitterati and pitch an entirely new offering for the company, which they say only adds to their clients' existing choices of powertrain.
RELATED: Bentley's Bentayga X Concept Is The Off-Roader We've Been Waiting For
The room, a recently repurposed swim centre now better suited to launch fashion labels, is pumping. Guests sip themed cocktails (Electre or Ombre Walnut, anyone?), hunt angles for the ‘Gram, while languages and accents of all persuasion flit across the room.
With 1919 the year of the company’s birth, the curtains cleverly drop at exactly 7:19 PM, and the scene is dominated by the car’s chandelier-esque front grille, now sporting 76 individually-lit Cumbria crystals – glitterati alright.
Introductions are led by CEO & Chairman, Dr. Frank-Steffen Walliser, before moving to a panel featuring the head of Sales & Marketing, the Regional Director for Asia-Pacific, and the Director of Design, Robin Page.
Named after a wilderness stacked with dramatic limestone cliffs in Andalusia, Spain, Torcal is the company’s first electric vehicle and a departure from four iterations of the current design language. It’s priced from $398,000, with the punchier Torcal S offering a scarcely believable 650 kilowatts and 1,350 Newton-metres of torque, asking $474,000 before options.
The main meal is a deeper exploration of the team’s philosophy and the vehicle’s design by Page. He breaks down the hierarchy of how people intuit a vehicle’s appearance and texture, describing them as the four “reads”: proportion, graphical elements, surface language, and details.
The first design “read” from a distance, as Page puts it, is Incontrovertibly Bentley. A long wheelbase and bonnet (which swaps a V8 for extra storage space), short front overhang, pumped-out rear haunches, and deceptively low roofline offer refinement and athleticism – the “bones” of the car feel right.
Approaching the Torcal from the front makes me miss the classic, rounded forms that usually lead the Flying B, with a decidedly less friendly aesthetic. The gorgeous jewellery usually confined to the headlights now dominates the front grille, which the company says makes for a “proud frontal aspect.” A little too proud for my taste.
Walking alongside the handsome side-profile reveals a relatively unfussy affair at the rear, with a pleasing combination of shapes and subtle deployment of negative space to offer texture and movement, while the design neatly takes into account the lack of exhausts – it’s natural and easy on the eyes.
Torcal’s interior retains the beautiful flow and shape of its forebears – another successful “first read.” The floor-to-ceiling richness in materials that has characterised the vehicles since the company’s inception makes way for a suite of innovative, mostly well-thought-out materials with a huge suite of customisable options. It’s sumptuous but short of out-and-out opulence.
In partnership with a British clothmaker, Bentley has incorporated the world’s first application of “automotive-grade” Merino wool into a vehicle. “Dinamica”, a suede-like, sustainable, but still premium-feeling material, replaces leather in the roof-liner, while wood veneer, pressed to less than a millimetre thick, no longer enjoys a solid “foundation” backed by walnut, cherry, or oak. Bentley tragics will notice their shoes don’t seem to sink quite as deep into the carpet, either.
Comparisons to the slightly pricier Bentayga SUV aren’t entirely fair, but can’t be avoided when the brand has made a name for itself crafting some of the finest automotive interiors for a century. They’re all understandable compromises, save for the piano black, which has seeped its way into the inserts of the steering wheel and the gear-selector panel behind it, door lock/unlock buttons, a lower slice of the infotainment menu, and rear cupholders.
Dominating the centre console is a crystalline drive selector offering different “Experience Modes”, which control the in-cabin environment by adjusting air circulation, ambient lighting, and the amount of information displayed, should you seek a digital detox. Driving impressions will need to be revisited in 2027, but it’s encouraging to see the team consider the driving experience beyond “faster, louder, and firmer.”
While elements of the Torcal will grate with Bentley’s old guard, I feel the near-impossible brief to make it different, but keep it the same, has been largely met. It’s a compelling new take on a classic recipe at a time when releasing next-gen vehicles is fraught with pitfalls, until next year’s drive.