MULSANNE INFO - STRAIGHT (some text hidden) SECTIONED_new_bentleymulsanne_2011

By Jonathan Crouch

Introductionword count: 60

Between 2010 and 2020, this was Bentley's flagship, the Mulsanne, a car in which old-style opulence met the modern world in a design which prioritised the driver involvement that the brand's pre-war models were once famed for. More dynamic than a Rolls Royce, more luxurious than a Maybach, it claims to be the definitive super luxury saloon of its period.

Modelsword count: 7

(4dr Saloon [standard, Extended Wheelbase, Speed] )

Historyword count: 386

Back in 2010, it had been a very long time, eighty long years in fact, since we'd seen a real Bentley - a design created from scratch to be nothing more and nothing less. A car like this one, the Mulsanne. For more than half of the last century, the Bentley marque was a mere badge-engineered variant of its Rolls Royce partner, which is what produced designs like the Arnage model this car replaced - or the previous Mulsanne saloon, sold between 1980 and 1992. When Bentley was sold to Volkswagen in 1998, to some extent the badge-engineering continued because new products like the Continental GT and Flying Spur necessarily owed much to the German group's flagship volume models. Which meant that they couldn't really take on Rolls Royce in the ultimate luxury sector of the market. The Mulsanne of 2010 though, could. Only with this car could Bentley finally take the opportunity to develop from the ground-up, its own unique take on automotive excellence. Was it worth the wait? First, credit where credit's due. The Bentley board overcame serious pressure to water this car's design down with the platform of an Audi A8, just as competitors Rolls Royce were forced to fill their rival Ghost model with bits from a BMW 7 Series. They resisted it, determined that like the Bentley 8-litre of 1930, the last 'proper' fully Crewe-conceived representative of the marque, this design should owe nothing to any lesser car. They'd watched Maybach try - and fail - to take on the Rolls Royce Phantom with a glorified Mercedes S-Class. With this Mulsanne, this British brand weren't about to make the same mistake. So everything about this car was bespoke, unique and very, very special. As it should be in a vehicle that may very well be the finest motorcar from its period that money can buy. There was a mild equipment update in 2013, then the top 'Speed' version was introduced in 2014 with an uprated 537PS version of the car's venerable 6.75-litre V8. An Extended Wheelbase version arrived in 2016. The same year, Bentley introduced a Grand Limousine by Mulliner version (which could seat four people at the back thanks to the addition of two rear-facing seats); only ten versions of this particular model exist. The Mulsanne range sold until 2020.

What You Getword count: 763

If you're going to spend this amount of money on a luxury saloon, then you probably don't want to blend into the background. Buying something bland like a Mercedes-Maybach seems a bit pointless when you could achieve much the same effect for a quarter of the cost in a 7 Series, an S-Class or an Audi A8. Hence the imposing Westminster elegance favoured by Rolls Royce and the thrusting masculine grille of this Mulsanne, with its startlingly large headlamps. In the pictures, it all takes a bit of getting used to but in the metal, the Raul Pires-designed coachwork all begins to make more sense, derived as it is in style from the last all-Bentley Bentley, the awesome 8.0-litre model of 1930, as well as from the S-Type Bentley of the 1950s. If you love it, then you'll really love it, but even if the opposite is true, then it's still hard not to admire the painstaking precision of this design. The way that the long bonnet, short front overhang and long rear overhang help convey a sense of power and movement, reinforced by muscular haunches and a sharply sculptured swage line that runs from the front to a rear end emphasised by a pair of long, flat shovel-shaped exhausts. But it's the inside that owners will remember. Can it really be so much more luxurious than that on offer from the sumptuous Bentley Flying Spur model that from new cost you £90,000 less? Well - how can we explain this? A Flying Spur, like any top Mercedes, BMW or Audi, merely affords the feeling of travel in a very luxurious car. Entering this Mulsanne, in contrast, is an occasion. It's the difference between a very well appointed lounge and a country house library or the chamber of the House of Commons. As in a Rolls Royce, you feel you need to put on a jacket before entering in and taking a seat, but the effect here is far less austere, far more inviting than it is in a Phantom or a Ghost. In contrast to Rolls Royces, which tend to offer a rear seat area only really comfortable for two adults, there's plenty of space here for three properly-sized grown-ups - as you'd have a right to expect from a car over five and a half metres long and nearly two metres wide. The first thing though that hits you once inside is the almost overwhelming rich, worn leather smell so evocative of vintage Bentleys, created by a traditional tanning process on hide obtainable from only a handful of suppliers worldwide. Surrounding you is wood so brightly polished it almost looks endlessly 3D, matched against gleaming glass switches and glittering chromium plate, all enough to make the 'soft-touch' plastics of lesser luxury saloons seem distinctly middle class. It took 12 weeks and 480 man hours to build a Mulsanne, with over 170 of those hours devoted to hand crafting this incredible cabin. Sat inside, you can see why. The entire cabin is encircled within a ring of wood - what Bentley call a 'waistrail' - with an unbroken panel of veneer prepared over five weeks to grace a beautifully appointed dashboard finished by classic organ stop vents and stainless steel brightware that gleams as perfectly as it does thanks to a ten hour polishing process. Seated in front of it, you grasp a steering wheel that took 15 hours to hand-stitch and whose position is memorised by a keyless entry system that also automatically remembers your preferred seat position, belt setting and even radio stations as you enter the car. Ahead of you is what seems like an endless bonnet finished, if the car you're in has been specified so, by a retractable Flying B radiator mascot. It's all part of Mulsanne magic and the reason why over 80% of owners, though they could afford a chauffeur, will prefer to drive themselves. Even your lifestyle accoutrements can travel first class. Press a section in the centre console between the three circular supplementary dials and ventilation switches and out pops a leather-lined tray for your iPod. And bigger storage provision? Well, out back, though this model is 300mm shorter than a Flying Spur, it still manages to offer a smaller trunk. Lift a boot lid crafted from composite so it can house all the ariels needed for satnavs and the like and you'll find that at 443-litres, the space on offer is also a little less than you'll find in rival Rolls Royces, though not by enough to bother likely owners very much.

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