Yeah THAT car is absolutely the perfect example of amazing car wrong badge. The disconnect people have on their faces when I pull up in a VW then open the door and they see inside....and then they learn the seats all massage and it has a 12 usually leads to not believing the badge at all.

 

It was kind of a stroke of genius that unfortunately fell flat in the market where the Phaeton was concerned. They designed a modular platform for the Bentley Mulsanne, with an eye for how it could also be used for the A8 and Phaeton in a somewhat cost-reduced fashion. Audi and VW got the benefit of a platform that was 90-95% of an ultra-luxury car that they could never have afforded for those models on their own.

 

No not the Mulsanne, it was for the Continental and Flying Spur as the "new Bentley" cars when VW bought them. It was based on the D2 Audi ASF system but made out of steel for increased weight and road NVH absorption, then they took the Audi W12 and gave it turbos to allow the Bentley cars to stand above all others for top speed in class for a long time/to this day.

The Mulsanne didn't exist until 2010. The entire line is based upon the ASF that Piech created alongside the W engine platform for his grand vision, he started out as the controller of Audi and then the whole company. That's why Audi had so much insane "why does this exist in this brand" stuff, he used the brand to make what he actually wanted until he had full control.

The Phaeton was a F you to Mercedes, better in every single way and totally outclassed the S AND was cheaper. It didn't need to exist at all past pride reasons as Bentley was the true user of that platform for gens 1-1.5-2-2.5

Then we got modern Bentley and ultimately the W16

 

Piech was a G. Loved his products.