Bentley is going to rival Land Rover with a 4x4 SUV, putting an end to weeks of speculation. Bentley Chairman Wolfgang Durheimer confirmed plans to build the super-luxurious SUV to website What Car? He said the new SUV could be their biggest seller and would attach itself to their expanding markets in China, the Middle East and Russia. He also expects them to use a Bentley's V8 engine, however in the future they could run a new Volkswagen 12-cylinder.

The new luxury SUV project is set to begin in 2011 and it should take about three years until production launches with a 2014 target date for release. He said: "There is fresh, 'undug' ground on the SUV side, the Porsche Cayenne Turbo S is good, very attractive, but it can be beaten on craftsmanship. If we could produce an SUV with the interior finish of the Mulsanne, we could have a real success in China, the US and Europe. It could be our biggest seller. There are discussions ongoing with the [VW Group] board; they are pretty advanced talks, but the project does still need approval." The new SUV could share the Conti GT's 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged V8 engine.

Durheimer also spilled the beans on Bentley's plans to build diesel and hybrid models. He expects the new SUV to be priced somewhere above £150,000 and it will sit at the top of their product line. Photos courtesy of Christian Schulte via Carmagazine.