Bentley Flying Spur Testing Equipment

Test Equipment
Funny thing about prototype-testing disguises: If it weren't for the disguise, most people wouldn't pick the car as a test prototype. There used to be no way around a test car's crust of cables, light-projectors, and fifth-wheels, but advances in fiberoptics and miniaturization have helped to liberate the car tester.

A compact data-logging unit, about the size of a game console, was mounted in the Bentley's trunk. Some 250 channels of information can be recorded. While early development (up to two years before launch) still involves a large quantity of sensors and displacement meters, such work is done under cover of the proving ground.

"When we get to this stage of the program (four months before launch), what we're trying to do is basically have minimum instrumentation on it," says Bentley validation engineer, Paul Edwards. "So we've got something like 25 channels on this car now, we're really only looking at pressures and temperatures, HVAC, cooling system, oil temperatures, and so on."

Not many years ago, engineers had to thread themselves through a forest of temperature and sound sensors just to get in and out of the car. Now, the Bentley's four-zone climate system has its own network of sensors, and additional, tiny units are easily concealed.

About all that's visible inside this car's cabin is a neatly coiled cable on the floor ahead of the front passenger seat, offering a plug for the passenger's laptop. A similar cable sprouts from beneath the carpet in the rear cabin.

"At this stage, 25 cables is a fairly small loom, so we'll just run those through under the carpets and into the boot," Edwards says. "It's quite discreet now, isn't it?"