Bentley Torcal EV Is Getting Sheep Wool Upholstery And Ombré Wood Trim

This arguably isn't even a hot take anymore, but I've always found leather in cars to be overrated. It gets hella hot and sticky in the summer, freezes up in the winter, and is prone to cracking as it ages, yet it remains the default luxury car upholstery material. Bentley appears to have heard those cries and is doing something new: its upcoming all-electric Torcal crossover will offer an interior laced with 100% Merino wool.

Because I know most of you are clueless wool plebs like me, "100%" here is not a measure of physical coverage but of wool purity, and Merino is a breed of sheep known for having particularly fine, soft wool. Per Bentley's press release, the material it'll use inside the Torcal is "the first automotive wool fabric to achieve 100% certification by the Responsible Wool Standard (RWS), the globally recognised programme managed by Textile Exchange." Translation: this wool is great wool, as certified by Big Wool HQ. The Torcal will also apparently be the first car ever to get wool this good from the factory.

There are other automakers using wool inside their cars — you can get a BMW 7 Series with cashmere, and Volvo offers natural wool interiors. But the latter is only 30% wool, while the other 70% is recycled polyester.

Bentley's 100% wool is made by English clothmaker Fox Brothers and is said to be super soft and breathable. It'll be available in six colorways that Bentley has, of course, described with words like "color family," "depth," "harmony," and "sophistication." No hot pink, then, probably.

Bentley

The Torcal will also get ombré wood veneer trim, which is made of 1,000 layers that are pressed together, then sliced into pieces measuring less than a millimeter in thickness. Made sustainably from walnut off-cuts and recycled paper, four shades of walnut let Bentley create trim pieces that naturally go from black to dark smoke to light smoke. For buyers who find wood a bit too... wooden, there's a new Sunburst Aluminium (Bentley is British, after all) option that brings to mind the aluminum dashes of classic Bentleys.

The luxury automaker is ramping up to the Torcal's big reveal scheduled for September 23 (that's the 23rd of September if you're Bri'ish). Between the 100% wool, 1,000-layer wood, and EV noises made up of musicians playing real instruments, it looks like Bentley is bringing some old-school tactility to a genre of vehicle that, dare I say, desperately needs some.