BENTLEY ARNAGE 4.4

Alan Beecham bought this 1999 Arnage on condition, not specification, and he’s delighted with it – including the 4.4-litre BMW V8 engine

Alan Beecham had never owned a Bentley before this car, but the more he talks to us about his motoring history, the plainer it is that he was destined to end up with one. First, he’s had a few fast cars with big V8s, and though they’ve been from Detroit rather than Crewe, that tends to leave you wanting more. Second, he’s clearly got a thing for mintcondition machinery, as he explains.

‘I had a Corvette Stingray from the mid-1970s,’ he says, ‘and it was a really good one. I won 15 trophies with that car. More recently, I had a Chevrolet Camaro Z28 Indianapolis Pace Car edition, a 1995 model that was another low-miles car in immaculate condition. I like them to be right, and I don’t mind putting in a bit of work to keep them that way.’

The origin of Alan’s thorough approach to automotive hygiene came from his 30 years in the Fire Brigade, first as a fireman and fire appliance driver, then as a fire inspector.

‘When I started, we had these Dennis appliances with Rolls-Royce engines and beaten aluminium sides,’ he says. ‘Our boss used to make us polish the sides with toothbrushes and a tub of aluminium polish and it took hours. But it’s the method I still use!’

Alan was present at all the major fire incidents around Manchester through those years, including the Manchester air disaster and the Woolworth’s fire. So retirement at 53 back in 2005 seemed very attractive, and he decided he wouldn’t work again. The Beechams first bought a 65-foot Dutch barge and lived on that, then moved to France and bought a smallholding, settling for ten years. But a return to their home country eventually beckoned, and in 2017 they migrated back across the Channel.

The Z28 Pace Car was bought while they were in France, so when the Beechams returned to live in the UK, Alan wasn’t really looking for anything else. It was only when a friend told him of a Bentley coming up for sale that his interest was aroused.

‘It had an attractive story,’ says Alan. ‘An older gentleman in Whitby had sold his house and moved into sheltered accommodation back in 1998 or ’99, and with the money from the house, he’d bought himself a new Bentley Arnage. He lived on for 19 more years, having the car serviced every year and keeping a diary of its use – “Went to Scarborough for a picnic”, that sort of thing. It had only covered 46,000 miles and it was in amazing condition, so I bought it.’

Sure enough, the back seats appear never to have been sat on, the tool kit, first aid kit and umbrella are still in their wrappers and the only items that needed replacing were those four big »

tyres – which turned out to be the set fitted from new. Alan had to go through the car and do a light recommissioning job, as it had seen very little use for the previous three years, but this was limited to freeing off the brakes, cleaning up the discs and so forth.

‘Someone had taken the centre console out once,’ he says, ‘and they never put all the nuts and bolts back, which really annoyed me. But that was all I found that wasn’t as it should be.’

It seems Alan wasn’t alone in his high opinion of the car. The first time he took it to a show, at Capesthorne Hall in Cheshire, it won not only Best in Class but Best in Show.

‘I never really knew anything about Rolls-Royce or Bentley,’ he says, ‘so I joined the RREC. At an event soon after that, a group of club members came to see the car and crowded round, as the car was new to them and they were interested. One chap asked how many miles it had done, and when I told him, he asked me whether I had £1500 or £2000 ready. Why? “Oh, the head gaskets go at 50,000 miles on these engines.” But then another chap said “No, this is an early one with the BMW engine – and they’re good for 250,000 miles!” It was the first I knew of the difference.’

Yes, Alan bought the car with none of the prejudice or preference you might have for one engine over the other, and jolly sensible that seems too. The history the Arnage’s development and subsequent changes will be familiar to owners of these cars, but perhaps less so to others, and it’s rather surprising.

The Arnage began its development cycle long ago, as an idea with its roots in the late 1980s. Rolls-Royce was enjoying an uplift in sales generated largely by the resurgence of Bentley (see our Anatomy of the Mulsanne Turbo and Turbo R, p54) and was keenly aware of the need to put some groundwork into the replacement for the SZ-generation cars, the Bentley Turbo R and Brooklands, and the RollsRoyce Silver Spirit. A proposal for the new car’s shape was completed by »

Arnage's shape was another typical R-R / Bentley success: it's aged very slowly

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Number plate reads 'Entley', after a young grandson's attempt at the car's name

Steve Harper, under Chief Designer Graham Hull, but the important decisions didn’t happen until 1994.

At this point the firm was undoubtedly profitable but money wasn’t unlimited, and Rolls-Royce found itself with some ‘heritage’ engineering problems – a single engine design dating back to 1959 and some antiquated production facilities. They could fix one of these but not both, and so took the unprecedented step of deciding to bring in engines from outside manufacturers while they spent what was required to build new assembly facilities and develop the rest of the car.

There was innovation here, too, with external consultancy used throughout

32 VALVES AND TWO TURBOS – BMW’S CLEVER V8

The BMW M62 engine is an allaluminium 90-degree V8 engine with four valves per cylinder, actuated by twin overhead camshafts on each bank. It arrived in 1995 as a direct successor to the similar M60 engine that Rolls-Royce and Bentley engineers would have been able to try in the 1992-onwards 5-series and 7-series models when they were deciding on a powerplant. While it showed promise, Rolls-Royce embarked on some extensive further development with help from another company owned by the same parent, Vickers PLC, and that was Cosworth. They embarked on the fitment of two small turbochargers, knowing that

than one large one, and so should

Their housings were cast into the

still further and the results were impressive: 350bhp and a useful 413lb ft of torque down at 2500rpm. This small 4.4-litre V8 was doing an excellent impression of a much larger one, yet it could rev much higher, touching

getting breathless past 4000rpm.

That decision is up to the buyer. the process. A British company called Mayflower looked after the body engineering while Lotus looked at the suspension and other firms chipped in elsewhere. The big news, though, was that BMW would be supplying the engines. And when the cars were announced in the second half quarter of 1998, it was clear for the first time that

there would be two different engines: a refined 5.4-litre V12 for the RollsRoyce Seraph and a punchy 4.4-litre turbocharged V8 for the Bentley Arnage. Despite giving away more than two litres to the old 6.75-litre V8 in the Turbo R, this new engine hurled the slightly lighter Arnage to 150mph and hit 60mph from rest in 6.2 seconds, while achieving a near-perfect front/ rear weight balance and sailing through every emissions standard thanks to its modern fuelling and ignition control. The new car was well-received, bar a bit of sniffiness about the Germanic origin of the engine. Most drivers were impressed with the Arnage’s abilities in the bends, thanks in part to Mayflower’s work that produced a bodyshell 65% stiffer than the old Turbo R. Bentley had another hit on its hands, but almost immediately the rug was pulled out from under them.

We’ve covered the sale of RollsRoyce by Vickers many times over, so we’ll make do with a single-sentence re-cap: in mid-1998, BMW were outbid by VW for Rolls-Royce Motors itself yet managed to nip in and acquire the R-R branding and logo, resulting in negotiations that meant the end of BMW’s engine supply to VW-owned Bentley, with future Rolls-Royces »

Interior just as spotless as exterior, but dated by details like the flip-up carphone

No BMW badges here, but then this 4.4-litre engine had UK development work from Cosworth

to made by BMW after 2002.

VW needed a quick fix, and as Crewe’s engineers had apparently already done some work on fitting the old 6.75-litre V8 into the Arnage as a contingency plan, the solution was obvious. So while production of BMW-engined Arnages carried on into 2000, only 1272 of them (including a special runout Birkin edition) were built, compared with almost 6000 of the re-engined cars launched as the Arnage Red Label and developed into the Arnage R, Arnage T and other later variants. VW’s engineers had done such a good job re-engineering the old L-series motor that it outlasted the Arnage and was carried over into the Mulsanne saloon that was made all the way up to 2020.

Be that as it may, the big engine and its wave of almost ridiculous torque has left the BMW V8 somewhat in the shade, which seems silly when you compare them on paper. After all, the Arnage was engineered around the smaller engine and is a lighter, sweeterhandling car with BMW power. And while the Red Label was faster, you’d need a stopwatch to prove it – the difference in top speed was limited to 5mph and the 0-60mph times were only 0.3 of a second apart. Then there are those head gasket issues… but how does Alan feel about the way his car drives?

‘It goes like a dream. It’s certainly powerful and there’s a Sport button; press that and it goes like the clappers. That’s not how I drive it, mind you – I use it as a Sunday best car for visiting friends, and the odd longer trip, plus of course I take it to shows. We’ve done about 6000 miles in the last five years.’

How has it been to look after – expensive to run?

‘No, not really. The service intervals are 10,000 miles and I haven’t hit that yet, but I keep a regular eye on the fluids and I keep it very clean. Not just on the outside but I get the wheels off, the engine covers off, and I clean everything. If I spot anything that needs attention, it gets a wipe with WD40 before it can get any worse. It sails through every MoT.’

So it’s been a perfect purchase for Alan. While it’s faster than a Dutch barge and easier to fit through gaps than a fire engine, it’s also picking up prizes at shows. And the family like it too – see that number plate?

‘That comes from a two year-old grandson who couldn’t quite say “Bentley”, so we have a plate that reads “Entley”, more or less. I think he loves it as much as I do.’ ■

SPECIFICATION

1999 BENTLEY ARNAGE

LENGTH: 5389mm Width: 1930mm WEIGHT: 2304kg ENGINE: 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 POWER: 350bhp@5500rpm TORQUE: 413lb ft@2500rpm 0-60MPH: 6.2 seconds TOP SPEED: 140mph COST NEW: £145,000