Autoblog UK

This Bentley is characterised by its impressive dimensions. It is 4.43 metres long and two metres wide. The car is like a living room on wheels. Its name is a reference to the engine, indicating in litres the capacity of the motor and number of cylinders. Today, this design is displayed in the company museum.

Bentley BY 8.16 Hunaudieres
350 km/h
623 horsepower

Autoblog's Will Powell reports from the Frankfurt Motor Show

This is the replacement for the Arnage, the last pre-VW era Bentley. The Mulsanne is certainly more distinctive than the smaller Continental Flying Spur saloon, which looks a bit like and oversized Skoda Superb.

Notably, the front of the new car has twin headlights, with the smaller ones outside the larger ones - the opposite of normal design practice. Bentley says the look is, "inspired by the Le Mans era" of the 1920s and it certainly makes the car stand out.

Rather than an evolution of the outgoing Arnage, the luxury British marque was keen to point out that the Mulsanne is a "clean-slate design." Even the platform is new and has been specially developed for this car and each will take 400 hours to assemble at the Crewe factory.

What's not new is the engine. It's Bentley's 6.75-litre V8 whose lineage can be traced back to 1959 -but modern twin-turbochargers give it a whopping 505bhp.

The interior is distinguished by a remarkable acreage of polished wood, meant to give the car 'the feel of a living room' (presumably a wood-panelled one). There are wooden panels running continuously around the whole interior, including a panel under the rear window and a strip in the B-pillar between the front and rear doors.

The Mulsanne goes on sale at the start of next year and will cost a distinctly recession-unfriendly £200,000.

The Bentley Mulsanne celebrated its premiere a few days ago at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in California. In Europe, the flagship of the range will soon to be seen at the IAA in Frankfurt and as successor of the Bentley Arnage, it will be on sale from the middle of next year. Being the ultimate demonstration of British understatement, the question arises as to whether it will be added to the Buckingham Palace fleet, since it has certainly the potential to "keep one amused". In California, the good, the great and particularly the well-heeled were certainly delighted by this luxury saloon. This Mulsanne has grown by 18cm and now has an impressive length of 5.55 metres. Powered for the first time by an engine that does not come from Rolls-Royce, the car has a 6.75 litre eight cylinder turbo engine which gently punches out some 550bhp, and should consume around 12mpg.

Bentley Continental owners have more fun. What's more, these four-wheel drive vehicles are damn good-looking.

Only a sheikh from the United Arab Emirates could possibly afford to own a whole fleet of them. A video shows his Bentley GTC 4x4 caravan bouncing across the dunes of the local desert landscape.

Urgent warning to all music lovers: the background music keeps going round and round in your head afterwards - either that or your Eustachian tubes get blocked by sand and you need to see an ENT specialist.

Some might say that the Bentley Azure is something like a piece of luxury vintage furniture on wheels. Solid, unchanged and sort of timeless. Now, by comparison, the new Azure T is almost exaggeratedly 'state-of -the-art'.

The difference to its conventional brother first becomes apparent in the wider-meshed radiator grille and air inlets, as well as the ventilation air intakes on the sides behind the front wings. The sporty variation of the luxury convertible for the gentleman who views 'sporty' as driving without a tie?

Well not really, because the visual appeal is also adequately complemented by the power pack, with its 500 HP. From a regal standstill, it glides up to 60 in 5.5 seconds and with an unladen weight of over 2.7 tonnes you could, shall we say, describe the combined fuel consumption of 14.5 mpg as being 'appropriate'.

In terms of traditional British styling, the I Pod connection and optional sound system with ten speakers and 1,100 watts of amplification may seem to be the equivalent of placing an IKEA table lamp on top of a Sheraton cabinet.

Still, rather than ponder upon that, let's consider where it fits into the grand plan in terms of its grand competitors.

The Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe as well as the Maybach Landaulet suggest themselves spontaneously as candidates in that league. Although both are priced clearly above the Bentley (RR Phantom from € 420,000 and Maybach Landaulet from € 900,000).

Since the "usual" Azure starts at around € 330,000, there should still be sufficient leeway to upgrade and still undercut the other two. Bentley has yet to confirm our wishful thinking in that department.