Two Tons of Class: Bentley Throwing Its Weight Around
Smoothly, elegantly, the big Bentley is easing alongside the Rolls-Royce as a world symbol of noblesse, discernment and all our impossible dreams.
In England--where the cars are incubated and handcrafted in bays adjacent to parent Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Ltd. of Crewe--sales of new Bentleys have quietly achieved parity with Rolls. In California (where new Bentley owners include Walter Matthau, designer Bijan, Aaron Spelling and Merv Griffin) the split is 65-35 favoring Rolls-Royce, but with the spread decreasing annually.
“It’s quite unlikely that Bentley sales will ever exceed those of Rolls-Royce in the United States, but a 50-50 division could happen,” noted Reg Abbiss, spokesman for Rolls-Royce and Bentley in America. The new Bentley buyer, he said, is a younger, more discriminating individual “interested in driving and going around corners seriously.”
So after years as a re-radiatored Rolls-Royce pandering to dwindling buyer loyalties, the Bentley is its own car. And--by the great green goggles of Walter Owen Bentley hisself--a performance car at that.
To be sure, the four-model 1989 Bentley line continues to share a 3-speed automatic transmission, body shell, dimensions and 6.7-liter V-8 engine with its Rolls-Royce sire.
But thanks to the raiding of chief engineer Mike Dunn from Ford in 1983, today’s Bentleys have stiffer suspensions, cast alloy wheels, grabbier Avon tires, disc brakes and even turbocharging.
The result is a series of paradoxes greater than sucking a Japanese beer on London Bridge at Lake Havasu.
Here is a car that is a lacquered Buckingham Palace weighing more than two tons--yet in turbocharged form, it will rocket from zero to 60-miles-per-hour in 6.7 seconds and that’s quicker than most sporty red flyweights.
Synonym for Luxury
Drivers and passengers in a Bentley still sit bolt upright on leather couches while listening to Vivaldi, peasants grovel at its passage and Mercedes owners continue to look the other way--but as you blow their doors off at 130-miles-per-hour.
And such performance has chipped not one whit off the quality and detail that has made Rolls-Bentley a synonym for luxury.
Therefore, even when trying to approach a road review of a Bentley Mulsanne (named after the 260-miles-per-hour straight at Le Mans) with a straight face, a reviewer is quickly seduced by opulence. You look for some overlooked details to scoff. There are none. Even the ashtray empties automatically into a hidden bin.
No other vehicle (save the Rolls-Royce and jet airplanes) fills its hydraulic braking system with extravagant and superefficient mineral oil. And then attaches a pair of cotton gloves to the top-up kit should m’lud have to perform that messy chore in an emergency.
The Bentley’s automatic air conditioning and heating system costs more than most small cars. The upper and lower units are independent to follow the belief that optimum comfort and efficiency is with the driver who has a cool face and warm toes. Theoretically, claims Bentley, you can drive the car from Alaska to Arizona without once adjusting the comfort setting.
A Classy Interior
The rear window defroster is activated by the first mist of a condensing morning. The matched hides of 11 Scottish cows and oxen (unscratched by barbed wire from carefully cultivated birth) cover the Bentley’s 540-square feet of upholstery. The carpets are Wilton with sheepskin mats. Door and dashboard are trimmed in burr or straight grain walnut, cut by hand and pattern-mated by the eye of an artisan whose family has been doing nothing but that for years.
Is all this worth $118,900 for the Mulsanne? Or $149,500 for the Turbo R? Or even $108,000 for the entry level (now there’s the ultimate oxymoron) Bentley Eight?
Of course not. What genuinely makes the Bentley worth more than a dozen Mazdas is the perfection of its engineering and an obsession with the sumptuous, the exquisite and total precision--qualities of manufacture that clearly did not die with Tiffany and Faberge.
Consider the plastic slap-dash and air-gun tacking of a dozen-cars-per-second on today’s assembly lines.
At Bentley Motors, they finish only eight cars a week for the American market. Each body shell is cleaned by hand five times before priming and spray painting. Which also is done by hand.
Pistons, valves and crankshafts are individually machined and polished to micro-whisker tolerances--then assembled by hand in oil baths to prevent dust contamination. From receipt of client specifications to 87-point predelivery inspection takes three months.
There also is the certain distinction that comes with the car.
More Abstruse
A Rolls-Royce, its Grecian radiator, its winged Spirit of Ecstasy, often shout loudly of vulgar millions. It can be rock ‘n roll, a guru’s hypocritical indulgence and his ‘n her Rolexes with diamond bezels.
A Bentley is more abstruse. It whispers of wealth to those who appreciate quieter things. Naive paintings. Veuve Clicquot Champagne. Rowing eights.
It’s a broad, flat-footed brute of a car stuffed with automotive antiquities. There’s one horn (an impertinent beep) for country and another (a stentorian bray) for town. The seats--from Connolly Bros., of course, curriers to the House of Lords and QE2--are wide enough to be first class on British Airways. You could play stickball in the back seat.
And to hoof the Bentley hard from a stoplight is to relish the astonishment of those who just knew nothing this huge can motor that fast while building decibles no higher than a velvet gurgle.
The driving portion of this review was conducted in appreciative, speed-tolerant England. In snow. On wet motorways and along John Constable’s leafy lanes where the predators are tractors taking a stroll and young bloods tackling blind curves in Peugeot 205s.
Through and around it all, the Mulsanne rode flat, sans float or body roll. True to its breeding, the Bentley likes speed and cruises comfortably at 100-miles-per-hour. At 110 it begins breathing hard. At much above that, it doesn’t really want to be--neither do drivers who can imagine the effects of transferring 2 1/2 tons of kinetics in any direction should there arise a need for snap evasions or dramatic pauses.
There is little racket to the Bentley except, oddly, for wind noise. It couldn’t be pegged to doors, windows or vents. But the whoosh was on at anything over 80-miles-per-hour and it certainly bruised the regal ambiance.
The thought also occurred that Bentley, without damaging its traditions, without losing the concert hall feel to its cars, might start working on losing a little of the length and avoirdupois of its cars. If management purists object, they should be sentenced to a day’s driving and parking around Bath.
Absolute Comfort
But to carp is to commit heresy.
No matter the encumberance or light limitation, the Bentley lives as it was conceived: as a huge car that goes fast in absolute comfort.
1989 Bentley Mulsanne S COST: Base $118,900. ENGINE: 6.75-liter V8 developing 280 horsepower. PERFORMANCE: 0-60, as tested, 9.2 seconds. Top speed, as tested, 127 m.p.h. Fuel economy, 10 city, 12 highway. CURB WEIGHT: 5,000 pounds. THE GOOD: Uncommon quickness and handling from a royal barge. Luxury through superb materials, superlative craftsmanship, traditional hand forming. Blue bloodline and 60-year pedigree sired by Rolls-Royce. THE BAD: Too heavy, too bulky, for all-purpose driving. Wind noise. THE UGLY: Still looking.
