Bentley Mulsane

The Bentley Mulsanne is a car 80 years in the making. The last time the brand built a bespoke model from the ground up, W.O. Bentley was still on the payroll.

At the same time, the world was on the precipice of total financial ruin and Bentley itself was about to be bought by Rolls-Royce. While today’s backdrop bears some similarities to 1931, Bentley can at least now consider itself in good health.

The company has shown healthy post-recession growth, and under the guidance of new CEO Wolfgang Dürheimer the tectonically slow rotation of Crewe’s product renewal cycle is speeding up to include a much-anticipated SUV, allowing the Mulsanne to sit at the zenith of a larger line-up.

But for now it is for this flagship limousine to prove two things. First, that Volkswagen was right to allow Bentley sufficient freedom and scope to develop a unique £200,000 car at Crewe.

And second, that Bentley’s central offer – of effortless performance combined with hand-crafted luxury – still appeals in a market accustomed to high quality at a fraction of this price.

DESIGN

The Mulsanne's look is traditional Bentley but with a modern touch, including an array of LEDs around the headlights' circumference to provide dipped beam. The front is a homage to the Bentley S-Type of the 1950s, but the look is thoroughly modern.

You can have the radiator grille in body colour or chromium plate to choice, and working your way through the ample options list is one of the most satisfying parts of buying a Bentley as you create your own aesthetic blend of colour, wheel design, interior finishes and so on. The bespoke world of Bentley Mulliner takes customisation to a level Mini dealers could only dream of.

The Flying B mascot is, surprisingly, optional but at least it retracts meaning the desirable - read thief magnet - ornament is more likely to remain attached over the long term. Other brightwork includes sill treadplates and matrix grilles.

Bentley’s flagship saloon is just under 5.6m long. As such, it’s about 350mm longer than Jaguar’s long-wheelbase XJ, and large even by Bentley’s own standards. The long bonnet, short front overhang and long rear overhang is textbook luxury car styling. Against this girth, the wheels measure 20 inches, although 21s are optionally available.

                                      

Compared with its predecessor, the Arnage, it’s almost 200mm longer, although it has an identical claimed weight of 2585kg. 

The Mulsanne’s body allows for some of that weightless growth. It sits on a steel monocoque and features lightweight superformed aluminium doors and front wings, a process borne of the aerospace industry. Despite the cutting-edge technology, the D-pillars are so complex, they are created by coachbuilders.

INTERIOR

Near the top of the centre console, underneath an eight-inch satellite navigation screen that motors almost noiselessly out from behind a veneered door, you’ll find the Mulsanne’s iPod connector. Hidden in a leather-lined, chrome-edged drawer, it’s the perfect microcosmic representation of this car’s mission statement: to deliver the very latest technology, and last word in comfort, to the Bentley customer, in a rich, elegant and unprecedented style.

The profusion of expensive-looking leathers, metals and veneers in this car’s cabin creates an ambience not just of real sumptuousness but of genuine warmth, too.

Other limousines might approach the Mulsanne’s spaciousness and interior specification, but few produce the same air of relaxed, informal luxury. The driver sits in a tall chair that’s comfortable and supportive, and adjusts in 12 directions. A fairly large steering wheel presents itself ahead, with a veneer rim that’s easily adjusted to your preferred position.

The fascia in front of you is clad in glossy wood, surrounded on all sides by soft leather and punctuated by polished stainless steel fittings. There’s no Breitling clock, as in previous Bentleys, but the usual organ-stop ventilation controls are present.

Having criticised the Rolls-Royce Ghost for cabin componentry carried over from a BMW 7-series, we must praise the Mulsanne both for the uniqueness of its interior fittings and for the tactile material quality on show. Even the smallest rotary knob on the centre console, which adjusts the volume on the 14-speaker audio system, is breathtaking.

The opulent luxury in the rear cabin is just as impressive. Eight-way adjustable heated seats are standard, and they grant a maximum of 1050mm of legroom and 940mm of headroom. That’s more legroom than you get in either a Mercedes-Benz S-class or an Audi A8. In fact, rear headroom is within 50mm of a Range Rover’s.

PERFORMANCE

The Mulsanne's body cloaks an entirely new chassis for a Bentley. It consists of double wishbones at the front and a multi-link system at the rear. The body is suspended via an adaptable air suspension system that allows the car to lower its ride height at speed and maintain good body control and level suspension irrespective of load.

The Mulsanne’s powertrain is a totally refreshed version of Bentley’s 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V8, now producing 505bhp and 752lb ft of torque. Other engines were considered, Bentley says, but dismissed because they wouldn’t produce the effortless low-rev torque that owners of grand Bentleys expect.

However, the technical update includes variable phasing of the single camshaft, cylinder deactivation to make it a V4 under light load, and lightweight pistons, conrods and crankshaft. It's a direct descendant of the original Rolls-Royce Bentley V8 of 1959, but today's engine could idle on the old one's unburnt exhaust hydrocarbons alone.

The engine is partnered with the very latest eight-speed automatic gearbox from specialist ZF. Its use means Bentley’s flagship model has gone from four forward speeds (in the old Arnage Red Label) to twice that number in less than a decade.

Despite its bulk – an almost naval 2745kg, 160kg more than Bentley’s claim – our test Mulsanne recorded a 5.7sec two-way average sprint to 60mph and needed only 13.7sec to crack 100mph. That’s slightly slower than Bentley’s claims, and slower still than the Ghost, but it’s by no means slow in outright terms. This near-three-tonne limousine is still faster than our 2008 road test Mitsubishi Evo X.

Bentley’s titanic pushrod V8 is the reason why. Despite tracing its ancestry back to 1952, it feels wonderful under the long prow of the Mulsanne: refined, potent, still as industrious and idiosyncratic to listen to as ever and, at last, perfectly matched with a modern gearbox. Although very hushed at idle, you get a taste of the engine’s distant savagery when you blip the throttle out of gear. The crankshaft zaps beyond 3500rpm in an instant, and with enough force to rock the substantial Mulsanne laterally on its suspension.

In gear, the twin-turbo V8 provides huge, lag-free urge, enough to make the car feel very brisk when given its head. The engine only revs to 4500rpm, but the ZF gearbox juggles ratios so judiciously that flexibility is never in question. All you get is instant and considerable performance, in whichever of the car’s six intermediate gear ratios is best chosen to deliver it.

Of more importance to many owners will be the refinement the car affords, and here the Mulsanne excels. At idle our noise meter recorded just 39dB in the Mulsanne; the Ghost registered 5dB more in the same test. At 50mph the Mulsanne is 4dB quieter than Jaguar’s XJ 3.0D – more than enough difference to notice – although the Ghost is a decibel quieter still at this speed, as is a Phantom coupé.