I had noticed in the past that on hot days, the AC would blow warmer air when idling, if the 'thermostat' temp was set to minimum.

A few weeks ago, I had to make 3 hr trip and had set the AC to 71, which I find very comfortable.

What do you know, no more 'warm breeze' at stoplights, even with an indicated 115 degrees F. Kept me cool as a cucumber, no matter if idling.



Wondering it setting the temp too low causes the AC to cycle at lower RPMs..

edit... This also made me wonder how many of the "10 key demands" from Ferdinant Piech for the Phaeton, that have naturally found their way in the Bentleys of the era, due to shared parts/systems.

Only a few are known, and the one for AC is as follows:

Something like you should be able to drive all day at 300kph when it's 50C degrees outside and the air conditioning must be able to maintain a temperature in the car of 22 C. (22 translates to roughly 71F)

This makes me wonder, with VW, known to cheat at a thing or two by optimizing for test conditions (emissions scandal, lol) might have targeted 70/71+ as a standard where the system is at optimum performance.

Wish I knew the other 9, as I wonder if, perhaps the BCGT, BCFS meet those criteria and were the autos he had envisioned for the Phaeton.

 

I think the details on the one you cite is a little off. I think it's you're supposed to be able to drive all day at 300kph with the outside temp 40C and the car must be able to maintain an internal temp of 20C.

I think lots of the secret 'demands' for the Phaeton apply to the Gen 1 GT and FS. Another requirement was for chassis stiffness. Wouldn't surprise me if another had to do with the 4-zone climate system.

 

Yep, I think the torsional rigidity of the frame was the other one I heard. As the lore goes, when he presented these to the staff, several engineers walked out as they felt some of the criteria were impossible.

 

The Phaeton (I own one if I haven't mentioned it 8000 times already ) developed a lot of the systems that got carried over to the CGT and FS. The air suspension, the W12 engine, the 4-zone climate system, the AWD system, the look and feel of the car and controls, the chassis, the brakes, the ABS system, etc. etc.. The Phaeton was a clean sheet of paper car that I read cost $1.3B to develop and VW lost like $45k on each Phaeton they sold. Carrying all of those developed systems over to the new Bentleys without the development costs probably saved Bentley at the time.

The Phaeton is a very cool car, and may be very collectible in the future as it will likely always have the distinction of being the finest VW-badged car ever made. I prefer it in a lot of ways to my Continental, and I in part bought the Continental because I like my Phaeton so much.

 

Agree on it being a potential future classic. The Phateon is a stellar value in the conflated used car market right now, not to mention an awesome car. I think the family resemblance (within the VW mark) of the front end makes it a real sleeper and not having the stress of turbos, I'm assuming makes it a more reliable long-term prospect. I too like the fit and finish of the interior, which is much more of a modern aesthetic and the 'no breeze' ac sounds really cool. Curious how that feels differently vs the B cars, which I'm assuming don't have this feature. Gimmick or cool? (see what I did there... )