Bentley Mulsanne Speed ​​2015 review

It is described as the world's fastest ultra-luxury car. Like all Bentleys, the flagship Mulsanne comes in a myriad of colors, with leather and wood accents, with the ability to personalize the car in just about any way imaginable – if you have the money, they have the know-how.

In the United Arab Emirates, where we went this week with the latest addition to the Bentley stable - the Mulsanne Speed ​​- they certainly have money, by the looks of it, there are plenty of Bentleys too (although these days you might not be surprised learning that learn China is the company's largest market).

As the name suggests, the Speed ​​takes it up another notch by getting even more power and better performance from what is essentially a large sports land yacht. A direct competitor to the Rolls-Royce Ghost and Phantom models, it will start at $733 when it arrives in Australia late next month.

Context

Yes. There is no escape from this. Bentleys are incredibly expensive. But believe it or not, the British company sold over 10,000 vehicles worldwide last year, 135 of them here in Australia - 87 coupes and 48 large sedans. 

You might think that's not much, but given that the cheapest Bentley costs $380 and the most expensive so far is over $662, that's a turnover of at least $60 million—the bottom line must be huge. As for the Mulsanne, Bentley has sold 23 vehicles in Australia since its launch in 2010.

History

The Bentley brand has a long and colorful history, full of ups and downs, as well as considerable success on the race track, especially in the 1920s and 30s, when the company won four consecutive 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Born in the fog of 1919, the company was rescued by Rolls-Royce after the Wall Street crash of 1929, and the company continued to manufacture both brands for many years. But by the 1980s, Rolls itself was in trouble, and Bentley's sales had fallen to rock bottom. Then, in 1998, after a brief bidding war, Volkswagen became the new owner of Bentley, and the Rolls-Royce brand was acquired by BMW.

Since then, VW has reportedly poured millions into resurrecting the Bentley brand, and while both British icons are still hand-built in the UK, they are mostly assembled from parts imported from Germany.

Figures

The new Speed ​​is everything the Mulsanne has and more. More power and more torque, with faster acceleration and higher top speed.

The 7.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8 (they call it the 6 ¾-litre) puts out 395kW of power and a whopping 1100Nm of torque, the latter already at 1750rpm. Power is sent to the rear wheels via an 8-speed ZF automatic transmission.

This is enough to accelerate a 5.6-meter sedan weighing 2.7 tons to 0 km / h in just 100 seconds and reach a top speed of 4.9 km / h, if allowed by law. The extra power comes from new internal components, a retuned transmission and a recalibrated engine management system, a combination that brings other benefits as well. 

For example, the cylinder deactivation system, which shuts off half the engine when it's not under load to save fuel, runs smoother and the transition is less noticeable. While fuel consumption has been reduced by 13 percent to 14.6 liters per 100 kilometers, giving the car an extra 80 kilometers of range, if you can afford one of these, you're unlikely to worry about cargo.

Customization

The starting point is a long list of standard equipment. There are 100 colors to choose from, 24 different leathers and 10 different wood inserts – or maybe you prefer the modern carbon fiber look. You might want to install a frosted glass bottle holder with crystal champagne glasses that can be hidden behind the fold-down rear armrest.

Technically, a dedicated router gives you instant Wi-Fi access, while a 60GB hard drive is designed to store movies and music that can be played through a standard 14-speaker audio system or an optional Naim system with 2200 20W speakers. the best car sound in the world (we were impressed).

On the way to

Fast cars require long roads and powerful brakes, but as with most of the Emirates, you need to keep an eye on the cops and cameras, not to mention the huge speed bumps that can be deadly.

Getting behind the wheel for the first time, the Mulsanne Speed ​​feels like something of a sleeping giant.

The speed bumps we're talking about are camels lying on their backs that have a habit of roaming roads where there are no guardrails, often with unpredictable results - don't laugh, we've seen it happen. Imagine facing one of those ugly bugs at warp speed - imagine a bloody mess?

Getting behind the wheel for the first time, the Mulsanne Speed ​​feels like something of a sleeping giant. It's a big car and feels big and slightly bouncy at times, even with the air suspension twirled in sport mode.

Put on a boot, though, and the Speed ​​will quickly go from a smooth, smooth ride to a powerful barnstormer. The big V8 comes to life with a roar, picks up the car and literally throws it on the road - but remember that this thing weighs more than three tons, so it takes a few seconds to start moving.

In Sport mode, the engine is designed to run above 2000 RPM, keeping the twin parallel turbos constantly running so that maximum torque is available almost immediately - ALL 1100 Newton Meters!

But with a top speed in the Emirates of just 120 km/h (140 safe without armor), the claimed Top Speed ​​of 305 km/h seems awfully far off. About the German Autobahn...

The whole issue of security is also interesting. Even though it comes with six airbags, all crash testing is done in-house - there are no independent safety ratings (perhaps due to the appalling costs of crashing a car into a $700,000 wall).

Thus, this is an impressive car, and one that would be desirable for the money.

Good for avoiding wandering camels, forward collision warning with automatic braking is standard. But we were surprised to find no reversing cameras, no blind spot warnings, no lane departure warnings - the latter in a country where they seem to change lanes at will (we were told they were coming soon) .

So it's an impressive car and would love to be for the money, but if we were shelling out for that kind of money, we'd expect it to come with everything, not just most things.

The big decision will be between Bentley or Rolls. Or maybe not, because if you can afford one of these purebloods, then you could probably afford each of them - it's a hard life.