宾利放下架子进军SUV市场

    宾利（Bentley）或任何一家超豪华汽车厂商打算生产SUV的想法都曾让一些汽车品牌的高管不以为然地一笑了之。不过现在他们再也笑不出来了。保时捷（Porsche）推出了卡宴（Cayenne）。玛莎拉蒂（Maserati）、兰博基尼（Lamborghini）、捷豹（Jaguar）、阿尔法罗密欧（Alfa Romeo）都在开发SUV。甚至连宝马（BMW）的子公司劳斯莱斯（Rolls-Royce）也在考虑开发一款——我敢打赌他们肯定会把这个想法付诸现实。

    新一代钱包鼓鼓的消费者不会认为SUV有失优雅。宾利已经算是最不跟风的了——但2016年它也将屈尊从俗，推出一款自己的SUV，这是宾利董事会负责营销的凯文•罗斯上周在洛杉矶的明确表态。

    批评人士对宾利在2012年日内瓦车展上推出的较早款SUV毫不客气地狠批了一顿。于是宾利放弃了这个设计方案，目前新款车型正在该公司位于英国克鲁郡的总部进行研发。

    推出超豪华SUV的原因很简单：这种车赚钱。高端客户就想在自己的豪车收藏室里收入这种车，愿意花上几十万美元买它们。而且不管怎么说，他们早就买了路虎揽胜（Range Rover）、奔驰G系列越野车（Mercedes G-Wagons）和凯迪拉克凯雷德（Escalades）。实际上，宾利发现它的客户中有30%的人已经拥有一辆路虎揽胜了。

    宾利SUV是能赚钱的，因为它的母公司大众公司（Volkswagen）已经为保时捷卡宴和大众途锐（Touareg）的车体架构和工程技术投了钱。在卡宴的骨架上植入宾利的血肉要比从头开发省钱多了。

    宾利总裁沃尔夫冈•施莱博这个月在斯托克向《前哨报》（The Sentinel）暗示，全新SUV可能会搭载暂不说明的“绿色技术”——可能是指混动引擎。

    他说：“对我们现有车型的技术平台来说，要搭载混动系统不重起炉灶是不可能的。”他还表示，将来新SUV可能会是纯电动版的。

    The idea that Bentley, or any ultra-luxury automaker, would manufacture a -- shudder! -- sport-utility vehicle once provoked a condescending chuckle from brand executives.

    No longer. Porsche now offers Cayenne. Maserati, Lamborghini, Jaguar, Alfa Romeo all are developing SUVs. Even Rolls-Royce, a subsidiary of BMW, is considering one -- and I'll lay odds it will happen.

    A new generation of wealthy consumers sees nothing déclassé about SUVs. Bentley has been among the last holdouts -- and that will end in early 2016, when its SUV comes to market, Kevin Rose, Bentley board member for marketing, confirmed last week in Los Angeles.

    Critics panned an earlier version of a Bentley SUV shown at the 2012 Geneva Auto Show. Bentley scrapped its initial design, and the new version is being developed at the company's headquarters in Crewe, England.

    The reasons for building an ultra-luxury SUV are simple: They make money. High-end customers expect to see them in showrooms, will pay the hundreds of thousands they cost, and, in any event, have been buying Range Rovers, Mercedes G-Wagons, and Cadillac Escalades in the interim. In fact, Bentley discovered that 30% of its owners already own a Range Rover.

    A Bentley SUV could add to the bottom line since its corporate parent, Volkswagen, already has invested in the architecture and engineering used for the Porsche Cayenne and VW Touareg. Grafting Bentley flesh onto a skeleton borrowed from Cayenne is far less costly than developing from scratch.

    Bentley chairman Wolfgang Schreiber hinted to The Sentinel newspaper in Stoke-on-Trent, England earlier this month that a new SUV could include unspecified "green technologies" -- perhaps a hybrid engine.

    "For our existing models with their technology platforms," he said, "it wouldn't be possible to create a hybrid without starting again and doing it all from new." At some point, the new SUV could be offered as an electric vehicle, he said.