2001 Buick Bengal Concept
A small third door behind the driver’s door and a retractable tonneau cover reveal storage space for custom golf bags or seating for two additional passengers.
Quiet Servant, first shown on Buick’s LaCrosse and Cielo concepts, is back — featuring voice- activated controls from Visteon Corporation and a reconfigurable, color head-up display that shows gauges on demand. This enables the driver to control the car and its systems with voice commands or a four-position joystick on the steering wheel. As a result, the dashboard is simple and elegant and the driver operates the car with both hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. The system is capable of regnizing 6 languages and regional accents while ignoring surrounding sounds in the automobile, even in a convertible like the Bengal. The driver can issue more then 118 commands to the car.
For the first time in GM’s history, a front wheel drive transmission is housed in front of the car’s engine rather than behind it. This new placement of the engine and transmission brings the cars wheels 8 inches further forward, compared to the conventional GM powertrain layout, to achieve rear-wheel-drive vehicle proportions.
In Detail
| engine | Transverse Supercharged V6 |
| valvetrain | OHV |
| displacement | 3400 cc / 207.5 in³ |
| power | 186.4 kw / 250.0 bhp |
| specific output | 73.53 bhp per litre |
| bhp/weight | bhp per tonne |
| body / frame | Unit Steel |
| front tires | 245/45R20 |
| rear tires | 245/45R20 |
| f brake size | mm / in |
| r brake size | mm / in |
| curb weight | 1496 kg / 3298 lbs |
| wheelbase | 2794 mm / 110.0 in |
| length | 4445 mm / 175.0 in |
| width | 1267 mm / 49.9 in |
| height | 1868 mm / 73.5 in |
| transmission | Six-Speed Auto |
| gear ratios | :1 |
