Bentley is always been a distinct brand, although it was linked to and owned by Rolls-Royce for 70 years. When you remember badge engineering and the British industry, names like Austin and Morris, Hillman and Humber, Riley and Wolseley come to the fore, but Rolls-Royce and Bentley were sharing much in the way of chassis and engines from 1933 on, and were unambiguously badge engineered from 1955 to 2003, when the brands went their separate ways again.
This Bentley Mulsanne Turbo, Turbo R and Eight (Eight, not 8) were linked to the Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit. The Silver Spirit itself was based on the platform of the 1966 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow and Bentley T Series twins, which for 1966 had many features that helped it maintain a claim for being the best car in the world. Significantly, this car was shorter, lower, narrower and more spacious than the preceding Silver Cloud.
The Silver Shadow was a much more up-to-date, even modern, car than is perhaps commonly remembered. Not only was is the first Rolls-Royce monocoque(unibody), with front and rear sub-frames, it also dispensed with the semi-elliptic rear suspension for an independent coil sprung system, linked to a high pressure hydraulic system licensed from Citroen (based on the system in the Citroen DS) to provide self levelling, and also the dual circuit disc brakes.
The ride quality of the Silver Shadow was an impressive step ahead of the earlier Silver Cloud. Unusually, the self-levelling was initially working on both front and rear suspension, and at two different speeds depending on road speed, to level the car after loading and to control roll once underway. The body was actually pressed and assemble by Pressed Steel Fisher at Cowley , Oxford, alongside much more mundane BMC and Rootes products.
The engine was a 6.25 litre version of Rolls-Royce’s V8. The power was usually stated as being “adequate” in any specification documentation but is now accepted as having been around 175 bhp. Later cars had a 6.75 litre, 190 bhp engine, so it was never a fast car, achieving perhaps 120 mph at most. The torque of the V8 gave it a fairly sprightly getaway though. The gearbox was the GM400, with, unusually for Europe, a column selector on the right hand side of the column.
However, by the mid 1970s, only a diehard would call the Silver Shadow the best car in the world. Some of the best automotive craftsmanship in the world, without a doubt, but the best car in the world, against the Jaguar XJ12 or Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9?
The Bentley version, known as the T series, was identical in every respect, except for a lower, less prominent radiator shell and lower profile bonnet. By now, the pre-war image of the Le Mans winning Bentleys was only remembered as history, and sales were perhaps 5% of the total. Rolls-Royce needed to find a purpose for Bentley to avoid it fading into obscurity.
In 1980, the Silver Shadow was replaced by the technically similar Silver Spirit, and the Bentley T series by the Bentley Mulsanne, named after the straight at Le Mans, rather than a series designation, as Bentley had used for 40 years. Was this the first sign that Rolls-Royce was allowing Bentley to re-awaken?
In 1982, Bentley introduced a turbo-charged version of the Mulsanne, known simply as the Mulsanne Turbo, with around 300 bhp. This was a successful venture, in volume and in image building, selling some 500 in 3 years. Not big numbers, but big numbers for a Bentley.
Rolls-Royce obviously liked what they had found: a market for a car with all the attributes of a Silver Spirit except some of the less fortunate image and connotations. By the 1980s, which were of course a decade that celebrated personal wealth, a Rolls-Royce had become a symbol of that excess as much as it was a symbol of breeding and “old money”. A Silver Spirit or Silver Shadow was as likely to be driven by “new money”, by some one who had got a big bonus from the bank and not a directorship; not so much a member of an exclusive gentleman’s club but the owner of a night club. Used Silver Shadows had by now a level of affordability and volume that only emphasised this. The Bentley Turbo opened up a new market with a different image, some how linked to the Bentley’s pre-war heritage.
Bentley built on this with the Eight in 1984, as an entry level model in the Bentley range. All things are relative; I know entry level and Bentley go together like Prince Charles and doing your own gardening and the price of just under £50,000.00 (say £110,000; $170,000 now) doesn’t really fit it either. After all, in 1984 you’d get a nice house for £50,000. It lost a little of the Mulsanne’s full and traditional interior and fittings – steel wheels and cloth upholstery were the most obvious sacrifices, and a mesh grille rather than the usual slats and slightly stiffened suspension were probably gains. But if that’s entry level, please count me in.
In 1987, the Turbo became the Turbo R. R was for Roadholding, not Race. There were more far reaching suspension changes than the earlier Eight or Turbo, with a 100% increase in roll stiffness over the Rolls-Royce, stiffer damping and the addition of a Panhard rod to keep the rear end in check. Wider alloy wheels and tyres completed the changes. Fuel injection was added to the V8, and power was up to 300bhp and torque to almost 500lbft. This was car that could do almost 145mph, whilst you sat in an Edwardian drawing room.
The feature car is a 1987 Turbo R, though it has been modified to replace the twin rectangular headlamps with the much more effective and distinctive double round lamp set up introduced in 1989.
Commercially, this car was a success for Bentley – almost 6000 were built in 12 years, and the Bentley name actually meant something for the first time in over 30 years. So successful was the turbocharging installation that the more sedate Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit and longer wheelbase Silver Spur went over to turbo power from 1995. 
Longer term, there’s another important by product of the 1980s Bentleys that differed from the contemporary Rolls-Royce. When the engineering conglomerate Vickers wanted out of car making in 1998, the Rolls-Royce car company was sold to VW. But as this company did not own the Rolls-Royce name, having only a licensing agreement with Rolls-Royce Aero Engines, the cars it produced had to be Bentleys, produced in much greater numbers by the VW group to this day, in the same factory in Crewe, in north west England. Rolls-Royce instead licensed the name to BMW, who created a new separate company and brand new show piece factory, near the historic Goodwood race circuit on the south coast of England, for the 2003 Phantom and subsequent cars.
But without the differentiation between Rolls-Royce and Bentley that started with this car in 1982 that would not have happened.
a chivalrous beast.
That monster degrades a Benz W140 to a fragile gas-sipping put-put economy car.
Agreed!
Since Bentleys don’t exactly populate every driveway in my parts, I never fully appreciated until now how much the 2005 Chrysler 300 cribbed this car.
The 300’s styling was based on the Chronos concept. being blocky-sided and having round-ish headlamps doesn’t constitute “cribbing.”
I’ll grant that from the fender tips forward, the Chronos front made it fairly intact to the 2005 300, but the grill was a bit more 2nd gen Chrysler LHS.
However, the Chronos was nothing like the 300 after the first five inches of the front.
The front clip has an almost last gen Riviera feel too it, maybe it’s the portholes that do that for me.
The cabin / greenhouse is a blend of 1st and 2nd LHS, with a little 6th gen Grand Prix thrown in. Tom Gale had a hand in all the LH cars and the Chronos, and it shows.
The Chronos rear made it moderately intact to the Chrysler Crossfire.
The Chronos………..
There is a cottage industry selling Bentley style grills for the 300…..
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Chrysler-300-300C-2011-Chrome-Bentley-Style-Front-Grill-/261620318509?fits=Make%3AChrysler|Model%3A300
Yeah, and this is the kind of customer they sell them to.
I always thought this generation of Rolls/Bentley was heavily cribbed from the ’77 big GMs. Which was a stroke of brilliance, since Americans expect a certain understatement from a hign-end British product that the Brits themselves don’t. So this style was suitably in-your-face ostentatious going through London amongst small European cars, but blended into US traffic full of B/C bodies and box Panthers until you noticed *that grille*. Brilliant.
Never thought of it like that. Good observation!
The ’77 C body meets the 1970 RR. I’d buy that theory.
I actually knew someone with one of these. He was a client of our office, and came from a family with quite a lot of money. He bought a brand new bright red Turbo R, which was probably the only one in Indiana. This would have been around 1987 or 88, and I seem to remember that the car cost about $75k, which was completely outside of my frame of reference for a new car.
I never got to ride in it, but did hear a service story. The car was new but not running quite right, and the dealer couldn’t get it where the owner thought it needed to be – the fact that it was such a new model may have been an issue. Anyhow, RR flew someone to Indianapolis who drove to our client’s house and asked to take the Bentley for awhile. When he brought it back, the guy said “I think you will find it satisfactory.” And he did. To this day, this was the best example of customer service I have ever heard of.
GREAT story. “Satisfactory.”
(Did RR have to switch its HP ratings from Gross Adequate to Net Adequate in 1972?)
It couldn’t have been the only one in Indiana. One of the most famous RR/Bentley shops in the country is Albers Rolls Royce in Zionsville. It was at one point the largest RR/Bentley retailer in the country and it has one of the most comprehensive selections of parts in the world.
The founder Hermann Albers was a pretty fascinating character. He was profiled in Car and Driver in the late 80’s.
Herman Albers was an amazing man. I had the pleasure of knowing him. He could recite the serial number of any car he had sold over his long career and the date he sold the car matching the serial number. I also witnessed him recite part numbers on demand. Not before or since have I known someone with his magnitude of memory.
This all I know but we are not really a Turbo R kind of state. I don’t doubt that there may have been a handful sold here, but how many of them were likely to be fire engine red?
I have heard of similar stories about Rolls. This is what makes the Rolls Royce/Bentley legendary cars and why they managed to stay at the top of the pile as status symbols.
JP,
In Rolls speak, the car was “failing to proceed”. They do not breakdown.
In fairness, the car never actually failed to proceed, far from it. Instead, it was a minor tuning issue. But when you pay $70 large for a new car, I’m not sure there are any minor issues.
If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it………
I’m not a huge fan of large cars, but this is one I’d readily make an exception for.
Last summer while returning home from a vacation trip, we rolled thru Front Royal, VA on US522. Along the side of the road, we see a 70’s Rolls Royce with a ‘for sale’ sign on it and a note instructing anyone interested to turn down the side street to Moyer Motorcars. It’s an independent repair shop, doing all sorts of antique work (pre-WWII and pre-WWI), but specializing in Rolls Royce and Bentley. With a very friendly owner who had no problem whatsoever that a couple of bikers hauling a late 80’s Harley FXR in the back of a Ranger pickup would stop by and look at everything sitting in the very large shop.
This is what we found upon turning into the driveway:
Dammit, hit the wrong button:
As a kid in 1980 I had requested catalogue from RR by a simple letter which I sent them by post. Within maybe a month an envelope had waited for me in my parents house’s mailbox. The actual and very distinctive (then) all new RR/Bentley booklet was in with an extended historic description of the RR/Bentley heritage and of course with the description of the (then) current models. Till nowadays I am still thinking with appreciation/respect about the way of how RR/Bentley’s management had handled a then young kid’s request and interest to their products… The brochure is still with me. Nice article and thank you for posting.
Very same story here, except I first wrote to them in the mid 70’s when I was less than 10 years old. They were very kind to me too and I have everything they ever sent me.
Me too…
Once in the mid ’80’s I had read an article where Mr. Gene Simmons had been interviewed about his acting in the then new movie “Runaway”, his relationship with his wife (then girlfriend), their newly born son…and…about a (used?) RR that he had been driven then. Mr. Simmons had given a proper answer to the journalist as he described his RR with words as “safe” and “reliable”.
Hey there is a Maserati Biturbo hiding in there amidst all that British aristocracy!
Around those times…when British Leyland had existed…and also as a kid, I have requested a sales brochure from them as well. The Montego Estate was a (then) product of the british autoindustry which intrigued me as an affordable car to an average folk. Opinions of mine about RR/Bentley and British Leyland (incl. Austin era) is basing on the aspect of “British” in general. For instance Bristol cars are also intriguing as they represents another special scale of the automotive industry in the U.K. I’d be happy to read some relevant article here on CC about Blenheims of the ’70’s, ’80’s, ’90’s and about Beaufighter…as well as about Jensen…
And then there’s the one I wanted. 1997 Mulsanne R, on it’s second owner and for sale at $32,000.00. Original owner, documented, was Billy Joel:
I’d definitely want Billy Joel to show me the CARFAX… he’s got a nasty habit of parking his cars in his neighbors’ living rooms.
As a kid in 1980 I had requested catalogue from RR by a simple letter which I sent them by post. Within maybe a month an envelope had waited for me in my parents house’s mailbox. The actual and very distinctive (then) all new RR/Bentley booklet was in with an extended historic description of the RR/Bentley heritage and of course with the description of the (then) current models. Till nowadays I am still thinking with appreciation/respect about the way of how RR/Bentley’s management had handled a then young kid’s request and interest to their products… The brochure is still with me. Nice article and thank you for posting.
Both Bentley and Rolls-Royce 20,000 Series cars (1987 1/2) are the best from that era being more dependable and a bit cheaper to maintain than the Shadow/Wraith. For whatever reason these cars have depreciated like crazy and can be purchased for cents on the dollar. $15,000 will buy a fine example of a Turbo R and is a LOT of car for the money. A well maintained Shadow/Wraith never depreciated like the Spirit/Spur/Bentley. The Shadow/Wraith was much more expensive to maintain but were so much more handsome to me.
As for speed, I always found the Shadows to be quite fast.
There is something so American about these beasts and I just love them. Too bad about the fuel consumption and worse the maintenance costs to own one. I saw a late model Turbo R in the Petersen Museum vault last month, it was Mr. Petersen’s personal car. This one was bright red and a guy on the tour picked it as his favorite car in the whole museum.
Rolls Royce made cars in the old Indian motorcycle factory before the war.Another fine read thank you Roger.I found a very sorry green Bentley in Lytham Mulsanne Turbo with flat tyres and the lacquer peeling from it’s green paint last year.
Gem,
this was in Lytham as well!
It wasn’t parked near an antique shop which has a sign written Morris Minor van and a brown and white Wolsley?
You mean these guys?
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/uncategorized/curbside-outtake-1960-morris-minor-and-1966-wolseley-1660-bmcs-conservatice-options/
About 300yds away, going towards St Anne’s on the main street
That’s the place and the cars.The Bentley was at the end of the street near the car park and sea
The 80s, when VERY expensive luxury cars sported alloy wheels that looked like VERY CHEAP Pep Boys cast off hubcaps. Even the BMW 7 series (occasionally) were found to have THE uglist alloy wheels to be found.
I have admired Rolls-Royce for as long as I can remember but share your view of the alloy wheels.
I’m reaching into the old memory banks, but could this be the same Bentley that Mike and Ed gave the treatment to in Wheeler Dealers? I know that they switched out both the lights and the grill (IIRC the early Mulsanne Turbos did not have the mesh) and it seems to me it was the same colo(u)r. Is that possible?
It might be, check the number plates.
I have a copy of W. O.’s autobiography and it’s fascinating reading… My favorite word from the book (which he used often) is “Flexbility.” The subject car above sounds like it would be a delight to drive…
I had that book. Nice read, should have kept it.
Have seen a big black Bentley cruising around near home with red pinstriping and other exterior detailing. Not sure if its a Turbo R or Eight, but it’s one of the baddest cars around the suburb.
I’ve never understood the allure of these things other than as a means to broadcast your ability to afford one. They’ve never been particularly good cars. Hand-assembling cars from expensive materials doesn’t make it good, it just makes it expensive.
Bentley…….for the man who wants a Rolls Royce, but doesn’t like hood ornaments.
This is perhaps the best looking generation of the Rolls Royce/Bentley I’ve ever seen. I like the squarish taillamps.
A couple of minor beefs. That much money and still a column shift? And the wheels
manage to look like cheap wheel trims.
That said, I could live with one, if not the running costs. At least I could service the
auto trans myself
These are the only cars of their ilk I’ve found more than once at pick n pull junkyards, RR or Bentley I don’t know, the grilles were gone, being the only part of value on these POSs, so I’m not sure. I don’t find these cars alluring at all, boring styling, boring interiors, shit performance in all respects, unreliable, expensive to own and grossly overpriced(whatever the junkyards got these for even they overpaid!). I’d rather have a Town Car.
The Turbo R is still my favorite “modern” Bentley and one of my favorite cars from the ’80s, period. It’s amazing what difference a grille and a big ass turbocharger can make, because as a Rolls-Royce, this car had all the charm of a decomposing corpse. IMO, of course; I like RR well enough, but they got so damn stuffy in the ’70s and it took quite awhile to wash the stench out.
Even the name is brilliant – “Turbo R”, brash and to the point. But not too brash like some of its successors. I like most Bentleys that used this styling as their jumping off point (the pre-VW Continental, Arnage, etc.) but none of them looked as refined or as “stealth” as the original. The dash is beautiful and the feeling of a big, quiet, low-revving, old school, *turbocharged* V8 must be truly unique. What’s really amazing is that you can still get this engine in the new Mulsanne.
If I had the dough, I’d love to have an ’89-’91 model in black (of course) with the tan interior.
These are one of the few “rich people cars” I would actually but they look classy somewhat understated for how much they cost. The also have beautiful interiors and who doesn’t want 500 ft lbs of torque to cruise the highway. I still see these around CT looking pretty new. Used to see even more when new Oddly I never see any of the current Bentleys or Rolls over here I think they are too flashy for old New England Money.
An a side note a friend of my father worked for Rolls in the US for a while ( I forget his exact role but I believe he worked with the dealer service departments) but he once told me to figure on 10% of a rolls value for annual maintenance costs IE a 75,000 turbo R would be $7,500 a year in dealer maintenance costs. Sounds like fun.
I spotted one recently, a very rare sight. One of the cars I remember reading about when new 25 years ago, the air vents and organ-stop controls are made of brass because it gives a better chrome finish, all sorts of insane details in the name of quality.
Also I don’t get the poor performance comments, these Turbo R’s were very fast for the day. Rolls-Royces were described as having “adequate” power, the Turbo R was “adequate plus 50 percent”. Unlike most markets, in Germany they had to provide an official power figure which was ‘only’ 300hp – but at only 4000rpm. They were pretty quick for the day, just behind a BMW M5 for example. I’ll try to find the old car test for more info.
Forgot to attach the photo of course…
amf they weighed three tons too.
Not my cup of tea even if I had the money.Now if it was a Bristol…..
The thing about these cars that always sticks in my mind was either Car & Driver or Car waggishly riffing on Rolls Royce’s famous description of their cars power out put as “adequate” by listing the Turbo R’s horsepower as “more than adequate” which sounded about right for a stately barge with a hidden power reserve.
“…it was never a fast car, achieving perhaps 120 mph at most…”
Didn’t RR’s standard evasive answer about top speed used to be something like “will transport five persons in ultimate luxury at a rate of at least two miles per minute” (= 120 mph)?
The more I think about it, the more I have to wonder if any other car has ever so wholeheartedly (in the case of the Rolls variants at least) embraced the Brougham aesthetic while standing in such solid defiance of the Brougham ethos of *simulated* luxury at an attainable price.
The turbo r you feature is my dads!! He still has it. The pictures are taken is Lytham 🙂