As it prepares to launch its first EV, Bentley faces the same problem as many other brands with charismatic internal-combustion engines. The near-silent operation may be appropriate for a luxury car like the Bentley Tornado, but customers will miss the NASCAR-after-finishing-school sound of the V8 engines that live under the hoods of other Bentleys. So the automaker came up with something it hoped would be the same, yet different.
From the Rolls-Royce 6.7-litre V8, which served from the 1930s to 2020, to today’s VW Group engines, the V8 looms large in Bentley lore and thus served as inspiration for the Torkel’s signature sound. But Bentley didn’t resort to simply playing fake engine noises, or remixing them with more high-tech sounds, as some other automakers have done, with generally poor results. Obviously artificial background noise is no replacement for the actual sound of air working through an engine.
Torkal | Bentley’s sound, crafted for emotion
That’s why I’m encouraged by Bentley’s decision not to even bother trying to replicate the sound of its combustion engines. Instead, Torkel will play sounds recorded by real musicians “using real instruments, including drums, viola and bass guitar,” according to a press release. Bentley claims the soundtrack “responds to driver inputs, increasing engagement.”
Bentley argues that the drums in particular will make drivers feel the same emotions that make V8s so memorable, as they come closest to the rhythm of a rumbling eight-cylinder engine. To test this, engineers asked people to walk between a parabolic speaker playing a V8 and a drum sound so they could be compared. What you see here is not a scene from some dystopian student sci-fi film, but a sound experiment.
When Torkal makes its debut, we will see how successful that experiment was. CEO Mike Rocco said an unveiling is scheduled for September 23. drive Sales are expected to begin in April in the third quarter of 2027. The recently revealed name of Bentley’s first EV comes from El Torcal de Antequera, a region in Andalusia, Spain, known for its unusual limestone rock formations.
Bentley announced the then-unnamed Torqal in November 2024, at the time describing it as a “luxury urban SUV” smaller than the Bentayga. Rocco tells us it will still cost Bentayga money, and like the larger Bentley SUV, it will share a platform with other VW Group models. In this case, it is expected to be an upgraded version of the premium platform electric used by the Porsche Cayenne Electric.
