MARQUE HISTORY MULSANNE TURBO & TURBO R
AN ANATOMY OF THE…
THE BENTLEY MULSANNE TURBO AND TURBO R FAMILY When the SZ range of models was born in 1980, it looked like the Bentley variants would linger on as badge-engineered versions of the better-selling Rolls-Royces. But dramatic changes were afoot. WORDS: RICHARD GUNN
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P H OTO G R A P H Y: K E L S E Y A RC H I V E /R I C H A R D G U N N
or Bentley enthusiasts, the SZ series of cars was where it all started to get good again. And then, it went beyond just merely good, and became simply superb. When Rolls-Royce took over Bentley in 1931, they were two very different marques. Rolls-Royce specialised in luxury leviathans for the very rich while Bentley was the builder of the ‘the fastest lorries the world’ as Ettore Bugatti put it. Blunt and brutal as Bentleys may have been - for they did lack the finesse of the cars from the company that swallowed W.O.’s old firm up - they had won Le Mans in 1924, 1927, 1928, 1929 and 1930. That gave them the sort of rakish, sporting appeal that Rolls-Royce could never muster. However, when the first Rolls-Royceengineered Bentley appeared in 1933 the so-called ‘silent sports car’ 3 ½ litre - it was a derivative of the Rolls-Royce 20/25. And that’s the way the vehicles wearing the Flying B mascot largely continued, with their chassis and engines shared with the machines crowned by the Spirit of Ecstasy. With the advent of the Standard Steel saloons, the distinction between the two marques was watered down even further. There were high points - such as the coachbuilt R-Type and S-Series
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Continentals - but with the advent of the monocoque Silver Spirit/T-Series models of 1965, Bentley became completely subsumed by Rolls-Royce. Aside from a few minor details, there was no difference between a Silver Shadow and a T-Series. It was even more extreme with the coachbuilt two-seater saloons and drophead coupés, for they weren’t even differentiated by separate names; the Corniche name was used whether a Rolls-Royce or Bentley. It was a badge-engineering fait accompli. Predictably enough, with little to make Bentleys stand out, their sales plummeted. By the dawn of the 1980s, they made up just five per cent of Rolls-Royce Motors Ltd’s production. But a revival was just around the corner. In 1980, the business was purchased by engineering conglomerate Vickers PLC.
It started looking closely at its new acquisition to try and maximise potential - and soon realised that Bentley was an under-utilised gem. Making its cars less like Rolls-Royce clones and instilling them with their own character and personality could well bring big dividends. The decision to bring back Bentley’s distinctiveness wasn’t a moment too soon: in 1981, 3014 of the newly-launched RollsRoyce Silver Spirit were produced. By contrast, there were just 151 examples of the equivalent Bentley Mulsanne. The route Vickers chose to revitalise Bentley was to re-awaken its performance heritage. And the most cost-effective way to do that was to
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