'If you look back at the early days of Bentley, it was all about the engine. They had the appearance of being powered by big engines that enabled them to be driven at high speeds, low revs and minimal effort. And that's the look I've tried to achieve for the new pillarless Bentley Coupe.'

The car will go on sale in summer 2003 with a twin-turbo W12 expected to produced well over 500bhp. Other variants will be launched later. These will start with a Green Label V8 model producing around 400bhp followed by a Red Label version with a normally aspirated W12 and 450bhp. There is even talk of a V10 diesel variant, though Bentley strenuously denies this. What they will confirm, however, is that the four-door version will not appear until 2004 at the earliest.

The Crewe factory is currently undergoing massive investment for this new model, although the body-in-primer will be constructed at VW's Mosel plant in Germany before being shipped to the UK for final assembly.

Bentley predicts that 75 per cent of production will go to new customers who have never owned a Bentley before, thanks to the affordability of the car compared with existing models. Price at launch is expected to be around £100K. The target market is potentially huge - according to Adrian Hallmark, Bentley's marketing director, seven million people worldwide now have the financial means to afford this new car.