- Luxury takes time – and lots of needles
- Stitches in time take four hours
- Master craftsmen means top quality
CREWE, England – With the new Bentley Flying Spur will come what its maker believes is the best example of a hand-crafted interior that has the the world’s most sophisticated and luxuriously stitched cabin.
Check the images and you’ll the Flying Spur really does have something to boast about – thanks to 141 Bentley craft experts, 350 unique leather pieces adorning 60 superior components, all held together by more than three kilometres of thread.
The leather men really are experts. They undergo a minimum of five months training under Bentley’s ‘Master Trainers’ to reach the required competence and to absort the array of techniques required to craft Bentley’s interiors to the highest of standards.
”All the leather hides used for Flying Spur’s cabin are,” Bentley says, ”sustainably sourced from northern European bulls killed for the meat industry. Why ‘northern’? – because Europe’s temperate climate has fewer parasites so the skins are naturally blemish-free.
Customers can choose from as many as 14 hide colours for their car, to be stitched together with a choice of 23 thread colours.
FOUR HOURS, TWO NEEDLES
The elaborate hand-stitching and leatherwork is said to be ”the best to be found anywhere in the automotive industry”. That, Bentley expains, is because each steering-wheel uses five metres of thread to be passed through 352 sew holes to create 168 distinctive cross stitches.
The job takes nearly four hours and a skilled Bentley craftsperson using a pair of needles with deftness no sewing machine can match.
READ MORE Bentley features on Carman’s Corner
Five sewing machine deliver varied thicknesses of thread and so contribute to the complexity and detail presented in the Flying Spur’s caBIN; For example, stitches around the components of the crash-mitigation bags are delicately applied with a thinner thread to keep safety a prime consideration.
The four seats of the 2020 Flying Spur require a total of 12 hours to assemble – by hand. The stand-out optional detail embellishing each seat’s head restraint are the embroidered Bentley wings – 5103 individual stitches.
The cabin in finished with three-dimensional, diamond quilted, leather door inserts – claimed by Bentley to ”be an automotive first, inspired by the Bentley EXP 10 Speed 6 design concept.
The modern Bentley’s are a little too bling for my liking, I prefer my 2000 Arnage which is a little less flashy, however I can appreciate the amazing workmanship that goes into them.