Norman Lear’s The Jeffersons had been one of my favorite shows in childhood. There were so many things about it that had made it must-watch TV after school once my cartoons were over. There’s that unforgettable montage of clips from the show in the intro, accompanied by the expressive singing of Ja’Net DuBois, who herself was a talented actress on Lear’s Good Times, playing the beloved character of Willona Woods. Louise Jefferson, played by Isabel Sanford, reminded me so much of my third grade teacher, down to the husky timbre of her voice. The show also featured an interracial couple, Tom & Helen Willis, which were the ethnic inverse of my own interracially married parents. Not of least importance, this was a show I remember enjoying with my late, professor father laughing loudly in his living room chair at the jokes as they played out. That kind of group participation in a show we all liked made it more special.
The entire cast had no weak links at all, as far as I was concerned. Among the more endearing and entertaining side characters was one Harry Bentley, played by Paul Benedict. He was almost invariably referred to as Mr. Bentley or just “Bentley”, and in fact, I needed to look up the first name of this character for this piece, which I had forgotten. Bentley was from England and was properly formal, genteel, and unassuming. He was a really likeable guy whose demeanor was about as close to one hundred eighty degrees from that of Sherman Hemsley’s George Jefferson, the successful and wealthy African American dry cleaning store chain owner who, though also very likeable, was often brusque and tactless to hilarious effect. Without turning this into a dissertation on this excellent U.S. sitcom, suffice it to say that I had always assumed that Benedict was also from England, or at least from the U.K. More on that in a minute.
Paul Benedict as Harry Bentley.
I hadn’t even heard of Bentley as a make probably until I was well into elementary school, and I had been a faithful student of all things car-related from a very young age. The first time I had become aware of any Bentley doesn’t stand out in my mind, but knowing myself, some argument had probably taken place. “That is a Rolls-Royce. What do you mean, a ‘Bentley’? Why are you making that up? You’re not even trying to be creative.” I would have stuck to my guns in the pre-internet 1980s until seeing the winged Bentley badge with my own eyes. This is not to say there were a bunch of Bentleys running around Flint, Michigan at the time, but even when it came to those types of high-end imports that were rare as hen’s teeth on Dort Highway or even in the tony College Cultural neighborhood, I had access to magazines which I would sometimes actually purchase instead of just leafing through at the rack.
Growing up in a GM town for which shameless badge-engineering and questionably differentiated styling among brands were de rigeur in the Irv Rybicki era, a Bentley seemed like the “Pontiac” of imported, ultra-luxury sedans. Why would one want to pay huge bucks for a car that looks like a Rolls-Royce without it actually being a Rolls-Royce? Every time I’d recognize one of these mid-’80s machines as a Bentley and not a Rolls, I’d secretly feel ripped off and maybe even a little resentful at the apparent trickery. It would be not unlike asking for Get Used jeans for Christmas and ending up with Major Damage denim. (I still wore those Major Damage jeans out, to their very end, probably until their designed-in patches needed patches.)
Circling back to The Jeffersons, I was as old as I was the day of this writing when I learned that Paul Benedict was not only not English, but he was from New Mexico. He was, in essence, a fake Englishman, even if he was just an actor playing a role. I immediately felt like Dorothy Gale upon finding out that the Wiz was from New Jersey. So now, it seems, I’ve been punked by two different Bentleys – the car and the character. And I am shook.
To add insult to injury, my customary license plate search had returned results that the featured car was an ’89 Brooklands, but that model wouldn’t arrive until ’92. The badge on the right side of the rear deck lid correctly identifies this car as an Eight, which was the entry-level Bentley from its introduction for ’84 through ’92. Power came from a 6.8 litre (I felt like I needed to spell it that way) V8 with 221 horsepower that was sent to the rear wheels through a three-speed automatic transmission (a four-speed would arrive right at the end, for ’92). Base curb weight was over two and a half tons. The base price of an ’89 Bentley Eight was around $108,000, which translates to about $282,000 in 2026. This tracks, as the base price for a new Bentley Continental GT starts at around $297,000. For comparison’s sake, an ’89 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur would have cost about $29,000 ($75,800) more.
One external styling element that differentiated the Eight from the more expensive Mulsanne was a diagonal-mesh grille pattern that was not unlike that of your standard-issue 1976 Malibu Classic. The indignities continue, though I will state for the record that I had loved my ’76 Malibu Classic for the five minutes or so that I had owned it as a teenager. One of the things I love the most about Curbside Classic is its global participation among both writers and readers, so I hope this piece has come across with nothing to contradict my utmost respect for my friends from the United Kingdom.
I suppose an Englishperson’s assessment of the authenticity of Bentley’s accent would be not unlike my gut-busted reaction to that of the incidental character of the woman from California on Absolutely Fabulous. I’m also sure that even though my default dialect is what might be referred to as “Midwestern newscaster”, it must sound dreadful to some who speak the King’s English. Oh, well. As is the case with this Bentley that is not a Rolls-Royce, we can only be who and what we are.
Lakeview, Chicago, Illinois.
Saturday, December 27, 2025.
Click here for some reading on the related 1987 Bentley Mulsanne Turbo R, from Roger Carr.
Knowing it is only acting, I still wince when English actors like Anthony Hopkins are cast as Americans like Richard Nixon in the 1995 film Nixon. Mr. Hopkins is perfect in “The Remains of the Day” where he plays an English butler. And Christopher Reeve who played a nouveau riche American. (Also an alien in another film.) That last line of your essay… “we can only be who and what we are.” An elegant phrasing of “you can take the boy/girl out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the boy/girl.”
Well we’re movin’ on up (movin on up)
To the east side (movin on up)
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.
Movin’ on up (movin on up)
To the east side (movin on up)
We finally got a piece of the pie.
What’s funny is that I can’t read the lyrics to the theme song without actually hearing the music in my head. It is all that engrained.
I have never seen Nixon, but I’m always on the lookout for new-to-me films with historic or otherwise compelling content – so thanks for mentioning that film.
Casting is such an interesting thing, but I suppose that sometimes the best actor or actress for the role is from a country that’s different from the character. I’d say Colin Farrell’s American accent is pretty much on point.
I thought the same thing about Hopkins as Nixon until I saw the movie. He didn’t look so much like Nixon, but he had his voice, his speech cadence, his walk and slightly hunched over appearance perfect.
I recently finished watching a series named “Task” on some streaming thing or another, and I was taken aback by the fact that a majority of the very fine actors were in fact from Europe and were thus affecting their Philadelphia accents.
Don’t get me wrong, I am sure that speaking in tongues and accents other than those which are native is a tremendously difficult task and one that is the hallmark of an effective actor. For the most part, these folks from Ireland and Wales were/are exemplary performers. But at the same time, I wonder how come there were not enough unemployed actors who were actually from the mid-Atlantic who could have done just as good a job.
I always thought the Bentleys were better looking than Rolls Royce, luxury without the pretentiousness. In addition, the rounded grille is more attractive to me than the “stuck-up-tight” Rolls Royce Pantheon grille.
I like your counterpoint, Jay. One might think a Bentley would have more appeal than an RR for a blue collar town-born guy like me, but I do prefer the Rolls only because it seems more like the genuine article. Of course the new ones are totally differentiated and even get name-checked in popular music. I don’t remember that happening in the ’80s.
Also, you couldn’t get a Rolls-Royce Turbo R.
Just like how you couldn’t get a Plymouth Horizon GLH Turbo.
I still feel bad about how Plymouth, which had also had its own legacy of performance cars, rarely got such product from the ’80s on. There should have been such a Plymouth-branded Omni GLH equivalent – in a perfect world.
Well blimey, old chap, never would have thought that about Mr. Bentley, a faux-Brit just like Higgins from Magnum PI who hails from Texas… What strikes me is looking at the still you show of him where he looks so….young! For all my formative years watching The Jeffersons he was a proper grown-up, here he looks like some whipper-snapper in his late 20s.
The Bentley as Pontiac analogy is pretty good, thankfully they never took to ribbed side cladding (for nobody’s pleasure, that). The later James Bond books of the early 80s had him driving what I think I recall was a Bentley Mulsanne R, which is pretty much the same body as this one and sort of put Bentley on my radar. Nowadays I’d still be far for more interested in a Bentley than a Rolls Royce, unlikely though to actually plunk for either should the means present themselves.
Still, in green, with the mesh grille? Someone chose the correct spec for this one.
PS: Someone drives pretty much the doppelganger to this one up in Laramie, Wyoming of all places…Perhaps they are entirely too common nowadays…More common than a Pontiac!
Jim, I can remember seeing (as an adult) one particular rerun episode of Magnum, P.I. where Hillerman had played half-brothers on the same show (or something like that), and thinking to myself, that guy does a very convincing Texas accent. Then I hit Wikipedia. I had almost forgotten before you mentioned this!
And you’re observation about Pontiacs being increasingly thin on the ground tracks with what I’ve seen here in Chicago. Every once in a while, I’ll see like a final-generation Grand Prix and pause to ask myself if I should photograph it. Maybe one day in the not-too-distant future.
I was an adult when The Jeffersons was on network TV and I never watched it. Well, I did, once … at someone’s home in Italy, where it was dubbed into Italian. But I don’t remember anything about the butler’s accent in the dubbing. It was fun to listen to, though not as much as Good Times … hearing JJ say “Dy-no-mite” in Italian has stuck with me for 40 years. And on an automotive note, I actually saw a Bentley last night for the first time in months.
Watching either show dubbed in Italian is now goals for me. Thank you!
Ah, yes, British engneering at it’s finest. A good friend’s father purchased a 1952 Bentley, I do not remember the specific model unfortunately. At the time we had a 1955 Packard Patrician, with every option except air conitioning. I was asked to help get the brakes working correctly on the Bentley. The front brakes were hydraulic drums that used 1940 Ford cylinders and possibly more 1940 Ford brake parts. The rear brakes were mechanical with a mechanical power assist device on the side of the 4 speed manual gearbox. I spent several nights under the Bentley, Tom (the son) would go the next day and put the Bentley on the ground and road test it and tell me what it was doing. It was a right hand drive car rather than left hand drive. Engine was a beautiful black painted F-head inline 6, dual SU carburetters
I told Tom it was pretty sad that a Bentley, and it’s more expensive sibling were still using a whole lot of pre WWII technology. My Packard had power steering, 4 wheel hydraulic brakes, an automatic transmission with a locking clutch, self leveling torsion bar suspension, an OHV V8, dual heaters, power windows and actually looked like it was a modern car, not a hold over from the late 30s.
Bill, all of these cars sound interesting or compelling, especially that ’55 Packard Patrician – beautifully styled cars.
Reading this about all of the then-old tech used in the ’52 Bentley is very interesting. I wonder if the thought process was to use older components that were more easily sources on such a bespoke vehicle as a Bentley to try to keep them as trouble free as possible. Just my own relatively uneducated-about-it theory.
Bill, those brakes were more post-WW1 technology really, because Rolls built that system under licence from Hispano-Suiza, who patented it in about 1919. Rolls used it up till 1965! Apparently, it’s clever in that the assisted part, the back, does a lot of the braking before the front hydraulics do any work, which makes for powerful, balanced brakes (usually, fronts do 80% of the work all the time), but as I’m sure you noticed, very fiendish to set up and keep set-up.
There’s no question in my mind that the US made the best cars in the world post-war, for the exact reasons you specify on that Patrician. The supposed “Best in World” Roller had literally none of the features you mention, well, except for a licence-built GM automatic.
The UK has produced amazing engineers, but I always think that the Empire attitude and class system also produced awfully insular N.I.H problem which meant some strange and sometimes plain out-dated ideas persisted for far too long.
Being an old goat, I had to Google Major Damage jeans.
Living not too far from the Arizona Biltmore I occasionally see Bentleys in the Safeway parking lot!
I was so proud of Major Damage denim – loved those jeans. At the time, they were probably the most “street” item of clothing I possessed. They were fly. I looked online today at secondhand vendors and couldn’t find ones exactly like my old ones, but perhaps it’s just as well. I don’t need clickbait purchase temptation like that, even if I’m literally in my 50s now.
The Jeffersons, doesn’t ring a bell at all. Not broadcasted here, I guess. Sitcom-wise -dating back to the seventies and from the US- I only remember the legendary All in the Family and the less legendary Sanford and Son.
I like that Bentley, perfect color, and less protserig than the Rolls.
The less-posturing aspect of the Bentley seems to have been referenced at least a couple of times today, and I like it. The more I think about it, maybe a Bentley did always sort of seem more “athletic” than a comparable Rolls-Royce given its relative lack of ornamentation. Huh!
The Jeffersons was actually a spin-off of All in the Family. The Jeffersons were neighbors of the Bunker’s until they moved on up to the Eastside.
1980s Bentleys fascinate me, largely because of their contradictions. A flamboyant car for the day, but dialed back by lacking the Rolls-Royce’s most recognizable features – the hood ornament and the Rolls name itself. Showy, but subdued, in a mysterious way.
I’d love to know who bought (non-Turbo) Bentleys of the day? Were they old-money type people who wanted the world’s best motorcar, but felt the Rolls-Royce was in poor taste? Were they enthusiasts of the Bentley brand itself, possibly the kind of person who had a 1930 Bentley tourer back in their garage? Were they former Rolls-Royce owners who got tired of having the hood ornament stolen?
And looking at your picture, an equivalent contradiction is the setting. A grand, elegant car, parked incongruously in a Chicago alley. That setting makes the car even more special, in my opinion. A few weeks ago, I saw a newish Bentley Continental filling up at a discount, off-brand gas station… which I thought was also a good contraction. An unfathomably expensive car, but the owner wants to save a few cents per gallon on gas.
Also, it’s very strange about the license plate search identifying this as a Brooklands. I wonder where that came from?
Eric, I like all of the ideas and questions you pose – none the least of which is the contrast of someone trying to save money on a gas-guzzling, expensive luxury car in your gas station example.
I had taken these photos in the alley behind the building that houses what was one of my all-time favorite dive bars, the L&L Tavern in Boystown. That place is about as far from the Bentley image as one can imagine. Fun fact: it was at the same L&L Tavern that I had my first shot of Chicago’s legendary Malört. I’m surprised that Malört hasn’t worked its way into one of my essays, metaphorically. Maybe one day.
I’ll add Malört to Major Damage and Get Used as things I learned about today. Thanks!
“Jeffersons” was one I’d watch.Never a fav. “Good Times” was just , plain, awful. Had a fair, long run though.
Saw a “Bentley” @ “7-11” last week.
I can’t be personal friends with anyone who doesn’t appreciate Good Times. It’s all good in the neighborhood. I just write and comment here at CC.
FWIW, Paul Benedict made an interesting short film called “Bad Dog” when he was college age, I hope someone more computer savvy than I can find it and post a link .
Bentley was always sort of ‘A Banker’s Rolls Royce’, pops bought a 1937 St. James Coupe when it was barely 20 years old, sadly my idiot middle brother left it in an unheated garage in January in Rochester, New York and that broke the cylinder head when the water instead of proper coolant froze and expanded .
This Bentley looks nice if rather subdued .
At the time I wasn’t a fan of ‘The Jeffersons’ but now I get the satire .
-Nate
Nate, ask and ye shall receive. I present the link for “Bad Dog” as sourced from YouTube: https://youtu.be/IOzh-nHtE6o?si=4MsNzbJmpufCGJTv
I watched all five minutes or so of it and think it’s *brilliant*. Everything from the basic idea, camera angles, and that soundtrack (which is fire).
This made me remember that Benedict had played the guy on Sesame Street who painted letters on things, IIRC. Another rabbit hole I may have to go down.
Banker’s Rolls-Royce – so the Bentley was less of a “Pontiac” and more of a “Buick”. I dig it.
I’m a bit late to the discussion, but if I have nothing else to add I’ll simply say that The Jeffersons was my absolutely favorite show of the whole Norman Lear oeuvre. And let’s just say that as a child of the 1970s, I was a prime consumer of the Norman Lear oeuvre.
I am now headed to listen to “We’re movin’ on up…” multiple times on loop just to feed the earworm that is residing in my head.
(I definitely appreciate Good Times as well. Even better for being a Chicago-based series. Says the guy who once dragged people to see the apartment building that served as the Good Time building image in the credit sequence.)
Jeff, you went to Cabrini Green to see the Good Times apartment building (and took others)?? That is awesome. I had just moved here when most of those buildings were coming down – not that I was feeling brave enough to go there myself. That whole area has changed so much, but I’ve also been here for over twenty years. All of that change was inevitable.
I will occasionally have The Jeffersons on in the living room while I do other things, and it’s so funny to be waiting for punchlines I haven’t heard since I was in like the third grade. It’s sometimes almost like running lines with someone in a theater program. I love the medicinal properties of nostalgia.
In 80s I often read Motor Trend and Car and Driver and recall the Bentley Turbo R article somewhat vividly. I loved it from so far afar that I have never seen one still. All for the best probably given the bespoke parts and repairs. Even at the time I told myself ‘I’d just get a Lincoln Mark VII LSC and pocket the change’ in pretend land where obtaining the Turbo R was a possibility. I like the idea of understated luxury probably from seeing all the old WW2 veterans at church in my youth choosing Buicks, Chryslers, and Mercuries rather than going ‘full blown’ Cadillac or Lincoln (the foreign car was absurd as Mark Cohn sang). Anyway in my 50s as well I am now very well satisfied with my ‘everyman’ 2018 Ford Taurus as a substitute for that Bentley Turbo R of youthful reading. Understated to the max – and similar dimensions – to impress those old GI church veteran heroes of mine whose values I have tried hard to adopt.
Tim, I like that the Turbo R is kind of like your “holy grail” – and I hope you get that in-person experience up close with one in the metal.
Bentley once made such good cars that part of the reason RR bought them was because their 8 litre matched the Phantom 1/2 Rolls. (Also, Bentley WAS. bankrupt, so there’s that).
After ’31, the Derby Bentleys had what I reckon is a fairly pedestrian chassis by Rolls, especially for such expensive machines, although they were often clothed by some of the most glorious coachbuilders of the time. Post-war, alas, the Bentley was just a Rolls without the grille, selling at 5% of the Rollers volume, and culminating in the unedifying blandness of this Eight. (As an aside, I never liked the 1980-on Silver Spirit body. It lost any elegance of the ’65 Shadow, even though it was in fact no more than an extensive re-skin of that very car). A large clump of not-very-reliable or competitive nostalgia, or, more likely, a crass trinket for snobs with gobs (of cash).
I still wouldn’t buy one. Best I’d do is the reverse of the usual fate of worn-out things – I’d grab the seats for indoor use, and leave the rest on the curb.
Your last sentence reminds me of some of the comments I remember reading on a RR post I scheduled a couple of years ago – where people talked about how some of these older, more custom / bespoke machines are cost-prohibitive to repair maintain once they get to a certain age and after semi-regular use. Great observations, even if I’m admittedly not that familiar with Bentley history. Thanks for sharing this.
In pre-internet days (70s and 80s) I used to frequent a bookstore that specialized in automotive titles. It was called Autophile and was on Bayview Ave in Toronto. The owner, whose name escapes me, had a pre-Rolls Bentley that he used to race at Mosport in the vintage class. I only saw pictures, but you have to be brave (or foolhardy) to race an antique and valuable car.
I now live in a small town that is a summer resort area and for the last couple of summers I have seen 2 current Bentleys, an SUV and a Continental coupe. I mentioned it to my non-car friends and they were all surprised by how incredibly expensive they are. If you want to impress people look elsewhere. You can impress people for less money.
Mike, I would have been so scared to break something on my vintage Bentley – or at least accelerate the aging process of some of the parts – while participating in such a race. And I agree with your last sentence wholeheartedly.
I loved the Jeffersons! And I really liked Bentley as well- such a nice guy. You may know this already, Joseph, but Roxie Roker, “Helen Willis,” was married to a white guy in real life- Sy Kravitz- and they had a very famous son by the name of Lenny Kravitz. I guess you could say that you are kinda like the Lenny Kravitz of your family!
I love the throwback pictures I’ve seen before on the internet of Roxie & Lenny on an airplane while on the way somewhere during the original run of The Jeffersons. And Lenny Kravitz probably contains more coolness in his nose ring than I have in my entire body.