Bentley has announced that the Mulsanne is finally being put out to pasture. It has been around for 10 years and what Bentley plans to do for a flagship model next is not something to which I am privy.
And I’ll miss the Mulsanne. When it came out, I wasn’t so sure about it. To me it looked slightly odd, an uncertain step after the majesty of all those Arnages and Turbo Rs. As the first top-of-the-range Bentley titan to be paid for entirely by Volkswagen money, I guess I was expecting something a little more bold.
Yet I know no other car that has settled so well in its own skin over the years. To these eyes, it has aged astonishingly well and if it does indeed turn out to be the last Bentley to top the price list powered by an internal combustion engine, its future status will be assured.
But, while we’re on the subject of engines, there’s something else I’ll miss even more about the Mulsanne: that massive lump of British bent eight aluminium under its gently sloping bonnet.
It is the longest-lived engine in the world today, so far as engines still put into cars by their manufacturers are concerned. GM continues to make its small block and Ford its Windsor motor, both of which are older still, but only in ‘crate’ form for those wishing to replace wornout examples, built hot rods and so on. They are not used in new cars.
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Awful phrase
It's not a BENT eight it's a VEE eight. Awful phrase, only journos use it, the rest of us think you sound stupid.
Ruaraidh wrote:
Being called stupid by someone who can't spell Rory
Hate to say it as I love ICE
A fine old engine indeed. But
A fine old engine indeed. But an electric motor simply does the job better - more torque more instantly from 0 revs, smoother, quieter, more efficient, more refined, better in every way, if Mr Bentley was still alive he d jump on the chance of using electric motors because they are better, he would not cling on to petrol power. Pining for petrol when something better has replaced it would be throwing the baby out with the bath water. Of course thats not to say I wont miss ICEs.
typos1 wrote:
Agreed. Electric motor suits lunxury cars best, for its silence, lack of vibration, instant torque.
And then the levels of refinement achieved in luxury cars derived from electric motors will be expected in and filtered down to premium then mainstream family cars.
Maybe a few manufacturers will be the Morgan of the future, making sports cars with ICE V8s & straight-sixes with manual gearchange.
There's more to it than that
In my opinion, a major part of the pleasure of owning a vehicle such as this is the appreciation of the time, effort and skill involved in coaxing such agreeable characteristics from what is, inherently, a violent and inefficient means of propulsion.
Electric motors make it too easy and remove several layers of human connection from the process.