Bentley is reportedly working to produce a set of 22-inch carbon fibre wheels. If true, this would make Bentley Bentayga the car with the largest ever carbon fibre wheels. Bentley would offer this through Bentley’s in-house customizing shop, Mulliner. Carbon Fibre is known for its lightweight with no compromise on durability.
These Carbon Fibre wheels will help reduce weight up to 6 kg per wheel, hence a total of 24 kg of unsprung weight. Carbon Fibre wheels also provide better handling and braking performance, which is essential for a supercar like Bentayga. Compared to the aluminium wheel that can lose up to 1 degree of camber due to wheel flex, these Carbon Fibre ones are much stiffer and much less prone to camber loss.
There are a host of other advantages of Carbon Fibre wheels. One of the key differences is, reduced tyres wear. As the wheels are less prone to bending, the tyres gain more stability, thus maintaining a constant contact patch with the roads. Bentley also mentioned that, in terms of safety, Carbon Fibre wheels are way superior. They have contacted various tests on these wheels by TUV, a technical inspection association.
Interestingly, Bentley’s Carbon Fibre brakes have passed each and every test of TUV. This includes radial and lateral impact, biaxial stress testing, excessive torque tests, overinflated tyres and more. Bentley also mentioned that in each test, Carbon Fibre tyres outshone their Aluminium counterpart. Another key advantage of this Carbon Fibre wheel is its capability to withstand high impacts. Aluminium tyres, in this case, cracks when it is hot hard, but Carbon Fibre ones weave starts to pull apart. And this helps in retaining the tyre pressure slowly, giving the driver more time to react.
There are no official updates regarding the pricing of the wheels. But, Bentley has confirmed that these tyres will go on sale later this year via Mulliner. Customers will also have other carbon fibre parts to choose from like, sill extension, rear diffuser and more.