Gadgetory

the breath of the automotive world has a plethora of amazing driving experiences but some of them are not designed for the driver some of them are meant for the person set back here Oh every moment was painted in gold we were made and the touchable Souls living life on the edge no regrets no can't die you know no yard Bentley finds itself at a crossroad with one foot firmly planted in its future but another in its past one part Jekyll one part Hyde on one side is their new sporty aggressive look that came in this century with things like the Bentley Continental GT and the speed six concept we saw this year and on the other hand is their legacy from the 20th century where speed and aggression were not the watchwords luxury comfort stature and firmly under that description falls this the Bentley Mulsanne people will sometimes oversimplify the difference between Bentley rolls-royce by saying you drive a Bentley you're driven in a rolls-royce but that's simply just not the case you don't buy a Rolls Royce Wraith to be driven in it no one wants to have to have the driver put the front seats down so you can clamber into the back of your luxury car that's a driver's car equally the Mulsanne is a hugely long limousine car it's designed for you to sit in the back this car alone the gadgets it has in the back are phenomenal the comfort level back there has been as much if not even more consider than anything up here in front so to say that Bentley's our drivers cars over Rolls Royces is simply not the case but this speed this Mulsanne speed changes things up it adds that extra power it gives you that slightly sports your edge on a car that's not meant to be sporty in the first place and then confuses the hell out of me because who is going to buy this car the Mulsanne is hugely popular in China one of its largest markets is out there but they don't predict that many of these will be sold over there these have been targeted at the European market someone who wants to buy the Bentley you buy if you want to be driven but who also wants to drive that car brass tanks the Bentley Mulsanne speed has a six and three-quarter liter twin-turbo v8 engine upfront delivering five hundred and thirty brake horsepower and eight hundred and eleven pound-feet of torque as over a thousand Newton meters that is a phenomenal amount of grunt what's even more incredible is that that peak torque is at seventeen hundred and fifty rpm right low down in the range and it stays pretty much flat all the way up to 4000 rpm this is a different kind of speed this is a different kind of delivery of power this is not built for a track but this is built for the Autobahn if you can get an open stretch of roads and the chance to put your foot down this car will not disappoint the brakes however have got one hell of a job to do they've got over two and a half tons of car that they somehow need to bring to a halt and for something this heavy going that fast that is a difficult job the hood ornament which in addition to being a great status symbol is also the only thing you have to indicate where the bonnet ends which is usually in a different postcode to where you find yourself sitting a five and a half meters long this isn't the easiest thing to weave around small Bavarian towns I've said though right here and now I can't think of anything I would rather be in on the exterior there's loads of little touches which differentiate it from the standard Mulsanne like on the Continental GT Speed there's a rifled exhaust and chrome details around the headlights which are nice little touches and if you're down the pub with your mate ooh also owns a Mulsanne but the standard one you can point those out as evidence that you have the more expensive and faster car but unless you're an absolute Bentley nerd those things were largely unnoticed Bentley maintained that this is a driver's car they maintained that all Bentley's are real drivers cars but really if you're buying a Bentley as a driver's car is this the one you buy probably not if I really really want to drive a Bentley and frequently that feeling does come across me I would go for the Continental GT Speed for several reasons in our previous Bentley film I went into a lot of detail but why I love the VW w12 engine I've seen the Continental GT Speed a phenomenal piece of work I'm in the minority most people prefer the v8 but I love that engine that's not available in this car it's faster has a higher top speed is faster 260 and it's lighter enough that the brakes feel like you have more control over the car than this does now it's well known that Bentley put huge amounts of detail into the work and go to great efforts to create the best-looking interiors using the finest materials and the finest artisan techniques and that is true for every Bentley from the cheapest Continental GT all the way up but in the Mulsanne is taken to that extra level the quality of the finish is at that premium Bentley style but every little detail has been considered our car has fully loaded I pad desk trays that come out you have at your disposal a mini office in the back of this car in fact if you're in the market for an office this actually might be a more efficient way of doing business in fact we should move the ex car office into the back of the Bentley there are touches on this car that do hint at it's more sporty nature or at least sporty intentions one thing I've always complained about some Bentley's are the flappy paddles which have always been these plastic sticky-outy things there have been set up for 10:00 to 2:00 driving which always to me indicator that really no one was ever going to use them they were not in the right place for if you wanted to drive fast on the speed however there at a quarter to three and they have this wonderful gnarled metal feel on the back now they control the 8-speed ZF gearbox which is one of my favorite gearboxes is absolutely phenomenal and then the Continental GT Speed it was unbelievable and certainly if you plant your foot in any gear it drops to 3 gears no problem in a heartbeat this is as good as any dual clutch gearbox you can get anything from Porsche Bentley is clearly moving forward in my opinion if rolls-royce had never taken them over in the 30s Bentley today we'd be on a par with Aston Martin or Porsche for incredibly fast exciting sports cars but because of that 20th century run under rolls-royce it's a different beast now and although with things like the speed 6 concept which we saw Geneva this year that clearly is a drive to become even more sporty more aggressive lighter sports cars there is the heritage that's been brought up over those years that they would be crazy to throw away you still see that in the finish of all of their cars across the range the wood the leather the effort the attention to detail is absolutely phenomenal and they don't want to lose that and they definitely shouldn't but the Mulsanne really is a car of its past we'll Bentley continue to make cars like this in the future will the audience that loves these ever dry up possibly not but is that a shame is that holding back Bentley from really committing to being what it really always wanted to be there's no two ways about it the Mulsanne really is a reflection of Bentley's past but that's no bad thing that history was built on the tradition of the highest quality engineering and design but it's not where the mark is going this however the Mulsanne speed adds those lessons it's learnt in the 21st century to create something that's truly the best of both worlds where performance and speed have been married with the highest level of comfort and luxury it might not be the ultimate drivers Bentley but speed has never been this comfortable you